


Teaching and Learning

by halictus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Professors, Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Remus Lupin, Eventual James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Flying Instructor James Potter, Found Family, Hogwarts Professors, M/M, Muggle Studies Professor Lily Evans, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, finding yourself, not really Snape bashing per se but if he is your fave this may not be the story for you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29761239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halictus/pseuds/halictus
Summary: When Sirius grows bored of his bachelorhood without new Hogwarts teacher James, he pays a visit to the old wizarding school. He quickly finds himself working with an alluring man who has plenty of secrets, starts questioning his real purpose in life, and (maybe even) finally grows up.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 94
Kudos: 76





	1. Black is Back

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr! Here is a link: [@halictus-writer](https://halictus-writer.tumblr.com)
> 
> This work is finished, and new chapters will be posted every other day. This is rated Explicit for _eventual_ sexual content. Other warnings include minor mentions of depression and minor homophobia.

It looked the same as it always had, which shouldn’t have felt unnerving, but did. Surely something should have changed, or grown, or fallen during his absence. But nothing had gone out of business, no new shops had popped up, and Rosmerta could have never even left the Three Broomsticks, for all he knew. Sirius Black was back in town, and yet Hogsmeade didn’t seem to care. 

Because he could, he flicked his wand at a neat pile of fallen leaves and sent them into the air. The small act of chaos didn’t change his mood, but it at least gave him a small sense of control. Shrugging, Sirius kept walking. 

Sirius didn’t think he would be coming back to Hogwarts after his graduation years ago, but now that he was, he was surprisingly irritated by the inaccessibility of the school. What’s the point of magic if you can’t even use it to get where you need to go quickly? He instead had to apparate to Hogsmeade and then now make the long walk—made much more tedious by the lack of the accompaniment commonly seen during his teenage years—up to the castle. He kicked an errant rock, which at least made a satisfying _ping_ noise when it collided with a larger stone. 

Sirius Black was bored. In the present, this meant he wished for James’s banter or Wormy’s rambling. Even doing the same walk solo but under the Invisibility Cloak would have been more exciting. But, if he was going to admit it—and he wasn’t, mind you—he was bored in a broader sense as well. It was the reason he was here: journeying to Hogwarts on a bit of a whim in the middle of October, mostly because he didn’t have anything better to do. James Potter would be there, and Sirius was bored, so he was going.

James Potter—the plonker—had abandoned Sirius in the real world, forsaking the bachelor lifestyle that seemed only natural for the two handsome, well-off, twenty-something wizards, in order to become the swotty Flying Instructor at Hogwarts. Maintaining the same schedule—if it could be called that—without his chosen brother had become less enticing for Sirius. After another few months of living with Alphard and his money, Sirius decided it was time to do something.

The act of doing something occurred about twenty minutes ago now, and that was merely apparating to Hogsmeade. Ever a bit impulsive, Sirius continued to trudge up the hill in the slightly-not-warm-enough clothes he had put on this morning. He cast a brief warming spell to compensate. Sirius checked the mirror again, but it was still dark. James seemed intent on ignoring his own brother in favor of appeasing The Man, and as such, Sirius was showing up unannounced. 

After what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes, the spires atop the school he used to call home came into view. Sirius didn’t bother to check his reflexive grin, and after a moment’s pause, he continued on his path, beelining for the Quidditch pitch. 

He found James alone on the field, the backs of surprisingly small children retreating up to the castle. Class must have just ended: success. Sirius took a moment to smile at his best friend, as of yet unalerted to Sirius’s presence. James went about the pitch arranging small broomsticks, all the while humming to himself and mussing up his already tangled hair. The familiar action was endearing, and Sirius felt briefly overwhelmed by his love for the man that had become such an important part of his life. 

To compensate for the sudden outpouring of emotion, Sirius tackled him. 

“You plonker!” James yelled out, after they both hit the ground. 

Sirius attempted to pin James, but his friend instead wrapped his arms around him for a hug. “Is that your broomstick or are you just excited to see me?” Sirius asked, glancing down at the two student broomsticks currently jabbing him in the stomach.

“Bugger off.” James laughed. “Why are you here?” He grinned after standing, and offered one hand to Sirius. With the other he again tousled his hair.

“You wound me, Jamie,” Sirius complained, taking the hand. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Of course I am, you prat. But help me with the rest of the broomsticks, my next class starts any minute now.”

Sirius frowned at the small pile of broomsticks yet to be distributed in the two even rows James had started and Sirius’s efforts had disrupted, and then he frowned up at the single file of robe-cladden children walking down the hill. 

“Oi,” James called, without looking up.

“Fine,” Sirius said reflexively. Then, “Why aren’t you using magic?”

James looked at his friend with all of the mischief and happiness Sirius had been missing. “If my students weren’t going to be here in twenty-five seconds I would really love to watch you try. Coercing dozens of carefully enchanted objects—enchanted to fly, mind you—into neat rows is a real mess.”

Sirius helped James finish with the brooms, but only because he had been spurred on by the brief glimmer of Marauder James, through all of the put-upon, teacher/adult nonsense. “So you can’t hang out with me?”

James blinked at him. “I’m teaching, mate. But we can spend plenty of time together after the school day ends,” he assured. “Well, I’ve got a bit of grading to do, but we can certainly have dinner.”

“At the Three Broomsticks?” Sirius asked with bright eyes. “It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten you properly sloshed.”

The students were probably just outside of hearing range now, and James had already turned his body and attention towards them instead. But he threw a confused look over his shoulder that Sirius didn’t like. “It’s Wednesday,” was all he said. Sirius didn’t like that either. 

Sirius almost paid attention while James set about talking to the group of kids like a total prat. Being in James’s proximity had always seemed to hold healing properties for Sirius, and while that wasn’t in jeopardy now, Sirius suddenly felt just as unnerved by hearing “Professor Potter” as he had felt when he first arrived in Hogsmeade.

After another moment of unlistened-to speech, James told Sirius to either help out or sit in the stands. And that was how Sirius found himself feeling not only bored, but somehow lost, watching his best friend help eleven year-olds learn to fly. They looked smaller than Sirius would have imagined them to be, and he couldn’t even feel prejudiced against the ones wearing green ties. 

Thinking briefly of Slytherin, which he didn’t often do, Sirius was prompted to think of Regulus, which he often did. Sirius sighed into the familiar sadness for a moment, before consciously pushing it off, and instead focusing on a kid at the end of a row who was having trouble getting his broomstick to fly into his hand. The others were already mounting theirs, ready to kick off then land again on James’s whistle, but this poor kid was still staring at the ground, empty-handed. 

Sirius took a moment to be shocked by his sudden empathy. The poor kid was probably eleven years old, practically an adult. He can certainly handle himself or choose to get left behind. Sirius rolled his eyes even though no one—not even James, he just checked—was paying him any attention. He thought of Regulus again and suddenly frowned. Groaning, Sirius stood and walked over to the boy, against his own better judgement. 

“Hey mate, what’s the problem then?” Sirius asked the boy. He squatted a bit to get to eye-level with the student, and was mildly surprised to see his dark skin flushed red with embarrassment. He looked almost close to tears, and in that moment Sirius didn’t even care that he was a Slytherin. He felt bad.

The boy muttered something, then looked into Sirius’s face briefly before speaking more clearly. “Everyone else can do it but me.”

Sirius smiled warmly. “Well then there’s your problem!”

The boy’s eyebrows drew closer together in response.

“You can’t worry about everyone else,” Sirius advised with a shrug. “It’s just you and the broom. You know, flying is a bit more of an emotional type of magic than transfiguration and all of that. Trust the broom, and it’ll trust you.” Sirius took a small step back, in preparation for any errant broom flinging, and nodded supportively. 

The boy took a deep breath, and looked down to his broom again. “Up!” he commanded. Nothing moved. He quickly glanced at his classmates, most of whom were now being instructed by James on the proper landing form.

“Nope, don’t worry about them,” Sirius continued. “Just you and the broom,” he repeated. The kid looked nothing like him, but Sirius couldn’t help but think of his baby brother again.

Sirius heard “up!” and then a deep exhale, a sigh, and then “up!” and then the distinct sound of a broomstick flying into a small palm. Sirius smiled at the boy’s grin, understandably excited by the accomplishment. 

“Thank you,” the boy said, before moving to copy his classmates. 

Sirius shrugged as he stood. “Wasn’t me. It was just you and the broom, remember?”

The boy shot him another small smile—Merlin, first years are small, Sirius thought again—before turning again to James.

“Mr. Black.”

Sirius froze upon the familiar words and intonation, and slowly turned his body one hundred and eighty degrees. Sure enough, it was her.

“Come with me please,” Professor McGonagall said, and turned to walk off the pitch.

Sirius, too shell-shocked to do much else, followed his former teacher—and, as he and James joked, maternal figure—up towards the castle.

“Am I in trouble?” Sirius asked.

McGonagall laughed. “It’s good to see you too, Mr. Black. It has been a while.”

Not sure where that statement left him, but too curious and far-enough along the trail to claim his independence and abandon her now, Sirius continued to follow. He smiled a bit at the entrance of the school. Not enough to be obnoxious, or to look like some kind of tourist, of course, but just enough to enjoy the fond memories it held. 

McGonagall guided him to her office, and sat down. Sirius sat too, before she could offer. If he was going to be chastised by her again, he at least was going to behave like the non-student he was for as long as he could first.

“Biscuit?” McGonagall offered.

“Sure thing,” Sirius said, grabbing one. As an afterthought, and interested in testing the waters, he added “thanks, Minnie.”

McGonagall rolled her eyes but didn’t tell him to use a proper title, so he leaned back in his chair a bit and crossed an ankle over his knee. 

“Sirius, you will be the new assistant teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts this year at Hogwarts,” McGonagall stated.

Sirius almost choked on the biscuit but managed to survive with a bit of chest thumping and coughing. “What?”

“I’m giving you a job.”

Sirius tried to connect the dots, and found it to be a rather difficult task in his current predicament. “No?” he finally said, pitched up into a question.

Seemingly ignoring him, McGonagall continued. “Our current Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is very good, but has to be away for brief periods of time on research trips. You will observe his classes, assisting where necessary, and you will substitute teach in his absence.”

“Minnie,” Sirius started, with a frown. The strangeness of her words left him mildly speechless, and he searched for an explanation as to why he would be doing no such thing. “I didn’t come here to ask for a job,” he eventually landed on.

McGonagall just raised an eyebrow. Chiropractors must envy her, Sirius thought, as he tried to straighten his own back after noticing her daunting posture.

“I just came to say hi to James.”

More silence from across the desk.

He tried again. “Look, Minnie, I appreciate it, sure, but I don’t need a job. No offense, but I have plenty of my evil family’s money, and I intend to spend it and live comfortably while doing so.”

At that, McGonagall frowned. “Sirius. You are a smart young man. Don’t tell me you think people only work because they haven’t got a key to an old family vault at Gringotts. Think critically.”

Sirius looked around her office for a moment, still surprised that this was the situation he had somehow landed himself in. McGonagall leveled him with one of her signature looks, and he immediately adopted better posture and turned his full attention on her.

“I am old enough to retire—”

“You’re not a day over thirty-nine.”

She pursed her lips together and narrowed her eyes, but Sirius could see the corner of her mouth turned up in a reflexive smile. “I am old enough to retire,” McGonagall repeated, “but I still work here, because this is what I am passionate about. I have found a calling, and I have determination, to work with children and educate them as best I can.”

During a brief pause, Sirius started to say a flat “Congratulations,” but McGonagall resumed her monologue sometime after the second syllable.

“You have a purpose in life, and you have plenty of determination and drive. And for some idiotic reason you are repressing those things. I just watched you help a child learn to fly, and I know you were very proficient at Defense Against the Dark Arts when you were a student. I am offering you a chance to find a lot of yourself here, before you get any older.”

It sounded a bit like a threat, but Sirius had to admit she was hitting very close to home. He knew his boredom was a bit deeper than he liked to mention, and that he didn’t really want to become Alphard, despite no other path presenting itself as being quite so easy. “I hear what you are saying,” Sirius said slowly, considering his words. “But I don’t think this is for me.” In truth, he was a bit afraid. Getting out into the world, living life, _being a person_ , was daunting. It was one thing to be a person at a muggle pub late at night; it was another to be a person all day, conversing with intelligent adults in the daylight. And that wasn’t even mentioning the fear of messing up loads of children somehow. He didn’t have the best examples from his own parents, and had long ago vowed to stay childless on account of that reason. Being a teacher sounded even less appropriate.

Minerva sighed. “Fine.”

“Ha!” Sirius barked happily, and leaned forward to grab a second biscuit.

“But do me a favor,” Minerva continued.

Sirius frowned, audibly sucking air through his teeth. The biscuit was frozen in its path, halfway to his mouth.

“Stay until the winter holidays. We really do need the help, and this way you can see Professor Potter as much as you’d like. And hopefully find yourself too.”

Sirius didn’t know what to say to this new offer. He still didn’t want the job, but he was starting to feel more and more self-conscious about the whole “finding yourself” bit. Was he that obvious to everyone else?

“Or I’m kicking you out, and you can wait to see James at the winter holidays anyway.”

“Ugh, fine!” Sirius cried. “You’re not even the headmaster, by the way. I don’t think you can kick me out,” he added with a grin.

At that, Minerva laughed, as if considering the possibility of doing so. They both knew she could if she wanted. “Come with me. I’ll introduce you to Professor Lupin.”

Moments later, they were walking further into Hogwarts castle. They navigated their way up a few flights of moving staircases and down a few halls. Sirius stared at all of the moving paintings and familiar corridors. “Why do I feel like you’re escorting me to make sure I don’t run away?”

“Because I am,” Minerva replied with a wry smile.

The pair continued to travel through the halls Sirius once lived in, and he watched ghosts flit through walls as he heard snippets of lectures through cracked doorways. Eventually, they ended up in front of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom—decidedly one of Sirius’s favorites when he was young.

McGonagall paused just outside the door. “Now, he’s teaching, so do be polite.”

Sirius tried to convey his innocence through open hands and a few blustered sounds, but McGonagall had already turned away and opened the door. 

“Sorry to interrupt, Professor Lupin,” she stated loudly, not sounding very sorry. “Do you mind if we observe for the rest of the lesson?”

“Go ahead,” a deep voice from the front of the class called back.

Sirius looked around the room, mainly at the walls, which, for the first time in his impromptu Hogsmeade/Hogwarts visit today, did not look the same as when he was a student. Tanks of water-dwelling creatures sat on the floor, and cages of flying critters hung from the ceiling. A grindylow glared at him, and he averted his eyes. He smiled at a friendly-looking bowtruckle, then noticed the pixies flitting about overhead.

Eventually Sirius looked forwards, and found students quietly and diligently taking notes—a sign of a threatening or otherwise demanding professor, no doubt. At the front of the room, facing a chalkboard, was presumably Professor Lupin. Clad in a thick cardigan, Sirius identified the man as a stodgy professor type, and resumed his look about the room. He noticed the professor threw only a cursory glance his way before continuing to lecture in his surprisingly deep voice.

The class ended soon after, and McGonagall moved forward, pulling Sirius along, as the students clumped towards the exit. “Professor Lupin,” she said, “meet Sirius Black. I think I have found you an assistant teacher.”

Lupin turned to look at Sirius and gave a half-smile. “Remus,” he said, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you.” His deep voice carried a hint of an accent—maybe he’s from Wales, Sirius thought.

“Pleasure,” Sirius returned, only partly-faking the statement, shaking his hand. Upon closer proximity, Sirius found that the professor—Remus, he corrected—was a lot younger than he first thought. They were probably about the same age, yet Remus carried himself much older than Sirius did. The battle scars lining his face probably helped the illusion along too. They also leant credibility to his claim to the field—the man clearly had practice at defending against the dark arts and dark creatures.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” McGonagall said politely. “We’ll talk more at dinner, Sirius.” Minerva left the classroom, taking with her his last shreds of hope for spending time with James—the only real reason he had come here.

“Right,” Remus said softly. He wasn’t quite as commanding when he wasn’t lecturing, but Sirius still found himself oddly captivated by the man’s energy. He seemed very sure of himself. “Minerva must have told you, but I have to be away for sporadic research trips, usually just a day or two per month. I usually just assign tests for those days, and let Mr. Filch supervise the class, but maybe you’ll be able to lead lessons instead.”

“Right,” Sirius echoed, suddenly feeling out of place. His body language was all wrong too, and he suddenly didn’t know where to put his hands while he was talking. “I’m not much of a teacher,” he confessed, slowly.

“Great,” Remus deadpanned. “The next class is starting shortly, so just go ahead and observe then. I’ll introduce you at the beginning.”

Apparently Sirius had said the wrong thing, because Remus didn’t seem very happy with him anymore. Sirius surprised himself by feeling intrigued by the lack of an effect he seemed to be having on Remus. It wasn’t like he was especially attracted to stodgy professors or anything, but he felt spurred on by the indifference Remus exuded. “Right,” he said again, awkwardly.

“You can stand at the side of the room. This next lesson is more hands-on, so be careful.” Remus’s voice was almost cold. Definitely unimpressed.

Sirius huffed a laugh as he walked towards the corner of the room Remus had gestured to. “Don’t worry mate, I can handle myself.” He accented the statement by pulling his hair up into a bun, and sticking his wand through it to keep it in place. When he turned, Remus was looking directly at him, but quickly flicked his eyes away. Sirius turned to the wall to hide his smirk. Maybe he still had some power here after all, he thought. 

Once students had filed in and taken their seats, Remus stood from his desk where he had previously been writing something down. Something seemed odd to Sirius, and he realized again that the students were surprisingly tame. No one seemed to be actively trying to derail the day’s lesson or make unnecessary noise. Sirius didn’t even see a single note being passed. If he were a student here, he would be causing plenty of distractions. But now, looking at Remus face the class with a smile—a real one, Sirius knew, after being on the receiving end of a decidedly fake one earlier—Sirius felt…embarrassed. Either these students were just better than he was, or Professor Lupin was just so well-loved that students actually behaved during his classes. Sirius wasn’t sure which of the two he preferred. 

“Good afternoon fifth years. Thank you for being here and for being on time, that makes everything go smoother.” Sirius watched, horrified, as a few students smiled at the statement. A young girl in the second row looked to be undressing Remus with her eyes. Sirius was thoroughly disgruntled, and the deep voice was only making things worse.

“Now, it’s Wednesday, so as promised, we have our weekly ‘Books Away, Wands Out’ lesson. But first, I want to give a brief introduction to someone new. Class, this is Mr. Black, he’ll be observing our lessons for now.”

Sirius gave a wave, and mostly to irk Remus, whom he assumed wasn’t offering air time, added, “Just Sirius is fine, thanks. I’m here to help, but I’ll try not to get in the way of your dear Professor Lupin.”

Heads turned his way, and a few students kept their eyes on him for a beat after Lupin picked the conversation back up. Sirius inwardly smiled, although he noticed the Lupin fan girl in row two hadn’t even taken her eyes of Remus in the first place. Mentally, he shrugged.

Lupin continued to explain something about safety and Sirius tuned him out. He started to think more about what Minnie had said to him earlier—about finding a purpose and all of that. The idea of working as a professor for the rest of his life didn’t seem like the most fun or even a very interesting option, but he wasn’t really sure if there was a better one. In truth, the idea of working without the actual need for the paycheck hadn’t really crossed his mind before. Did James really love being the flying instructor? Sirius realized he had never asked. 

Being unnerved for the umpteenth time today had to be put on the backburner when Sirius heard the noise of two dozen chairs being pushed back at once. Students paired up and faced each other, preparing to—apparently—duel with one another. If this kind of teaching occurred when Sirius took Defense Against the Dark Arts, maybe everyone would have done as well as he had. Instead, boring lectures and plenty of notes had been prescribed. Sirius and James—and Peter—had remedied their lack of interest in the taught content by “practicing” the spells a bit more hands-on with each other. They saw a lot of Madam Pomfrey at the start, but quickly mastered _Protego_ and other defenses. 

Sirius’s eyes followed Remus as he went around the room, correcting form and offering inspiration or what must have been little jokes which brightened students’ faces. Sirius winced as he watched a boy who reminded him of Peter get disarmed three times in a row, while his opponent didn’t bother to conceal his laughter.

Frowning, Sirius walked over to the pair before really knowing what he was doing. When he got there, they looked to him, and Sirius realized he needed to speak. “Well, let’s see it, then,” he offered lamely.

Sure enough, the Peter lookalike got disarmed, despite shouting _Protego_ three different times, before, after and during the other’s _Expelliarmus_.“Okay,” Sirius said, as Peter-kid picked his wand back up. “The thing with protection spells, is that you’ve got to say them at the right time.” The boy nodded at him with wide eyes. “Do you play Quidditch?” Sirius asked hopefully.

The boy shook his head. The other boy offered, “He’s muggleborn,” in a slightly mocking tone. If war tensions were higher, Sirius would have sat him down for a conversation on why blood purity isn’t all that, but instead thought it could pass as merely exasperated. Still, he would keep an eye on him. 

“Muggles have cricket, right?” Sirius asked again.

The boy nodded.

“Okay, so you’ve got your batsman and your bowler, right? It should really be batsperson or something instead,” Sirius added as an afterthought. “Anyway. You’re the batsman, and he’s the bowler. You need to cast your _Protego_ at the exact moment the spell arrives in front of you, just like you need to swing the bat at the right time to connect with the ball. Right?”

He got another nod in return, and stepped back, ready to watch again.

The other boy cast the spell, and Peter swung his wand like a bat while shouting _Protego!_ He blocked the spell. 

Peter looked up to Sirius immediately, grinning, and the other boy looked to him in shock. “That was the first time he’s blocked it,” he added with wide eyes.

“Won’t be the last though,” Sirius declared, and moved towards another pair he saw having difficulty.

At the end of the class—which went by surprisingly quickly—Sirius helped straighten out a few desks without being asked to do so. Once he started, he realized it felt out of character, but it would be weird to stop now. He also felt…lighter.

“Nice work today,” Remus said in approval, his deep voice carrying easily from his spot in front of the chalkboard, cleaning it with magic.

“Thanks,” Sirius replied, feeling very proud of Lupin’s praise for some reason.

“How did you get Henry to cast his first successful shield charm?”

“Henry?”

“The first boy you helped.”

“Oh. Told him it was like cricket.”

Remus frowned. “Defensive magic is nothing like cricket.” Sirius would have felt compelled to defend himself, but he was pretty sure Lupin sounded somewhat impressed.

Instead Sirius preened. “Cheers, but, I think it worked for little Harry.”

“Henry,” Remus corrected.

Sirius shrugged. “So, what’s next?” he prompted, somehow full of energy still.

“That’s all for today,” Remus said while sinking into his chair. He suddenly looked very tired. “There’s one more period of classes, but it’s preparation for me. I’ll be catching up on some grading.”

Sirius nodded, and sat atop one of the student desks. “So, how did I do?”

Remus looked up at him from his stack of papers. Sirius couldn’t read his facial expression. “You said you weren’t much of a teacher,” he said slowly. “But I think you did just fine.”

“So I’ll stay?”

“Yes? Is that what you want?”

“Yeah.” Sirius had a brief out-of-body experience, watching himself answer affirmatively to an obvious no question. He was presented with a way out of the trap, and he intentionally passed up on it. But maybe he did want to stay?

“Great, the extra help will be nice,” Remus mumbled as he paid attention to a student paper, quill in hand.

“So what’s next? For me.”

“Well, I teach seven different years of students, and some of those are split into just two houses at a time. You’ll meet more of them tomorrow, and I suppose you can keep observing for now, and jumping in where you can.” Remus punctuated the last sentence with a sweeping mark across a paper. Sirius suddenly wished to know what the man’s handwriting looked like, and chided himself for not looking at the chalkboard earlier.

Sirius swung his legs under the desk for a moment. He could go off in search of James again, he supposed. The alternative seemed to be watching an increasingly-tired Remus Lupin grade papers. 

“You don’t have to stay here,” Remus said, seemingly reading his mind. He yawned at the end of the phrase.

“You sure you don’t need a nap, mate? You look exhausted.”

Remus’s eyes narrowed, and Sirius decided he had once again said The Wrong Thing. “I’m fine. I got back from a research trip recently, and I’m still a bit tired.”

Sirius nodded. “Apparition jet lag? Timezone stuff?”

“Something like that,” Remus murmured. 

“Right,” Sirius agreed. “Well.”

“I’ll see you at dinner, then, I presume?”

“Yep. It’s a date,” Sirius quipped. His cheekiness had been neglected during his communications thus far with the young, tired, stodgy Professor Lupin, he decided. The blush and drawn eyebrows he was awarded with told him he was correct. 

Time to find James, Sirius thought, as he left the classroom, feeling light on his feet. 

***

As luck would have it, James’s Wednesday prep period lined up with Lupin’s. Sirius had run into him in the halls, while he was walking alone, his personal broomstick in hand, and covered in a good amount of sweat. Together, they had made their way back to James’s quarters.

“Can’t believe you just abandoned me like that, mate, she could’ve killed me or something! Some brother you are,” Sirius called through the bathroom door James hadn’t bothered to shut before stepping into the shower. 

“Oh come on, it was Minnie!” James defended. “I knew she just wanted to have tea with you or something.”

“She threatened me!” Sirius cried, and laughed inwardly at the smirk his dear old Professor McGonagall hadn’t bothered to hide when she said she could kick him out.

James said something that was made unintelligible by the synchronous cacophony of a shampoo bottle being dropped.

Sirius continued. “So now I have to work as a TA or something for Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“She gave you a job?” James pulled back the shower curtain to make eye contact while asking the question.

“Blegh, didn’t need to see more than your face there, mate.” Sirius waved his hands in disapproval, disregarding the fact that they had both seen much more of each other than planned many times. “But yeah, working with some stodgy bloke who has to be away for research trips or something.”

“Lupin?”

“Yeah. Welsh? Battle scars? You know him well?”

“Not really,” James replied. “This is his first year too. He keeps to himself a bit, probably because of the trips he’s always away on, come to think of it.”

Sirius nodded, though James couldn’t see it.

“So you’re here to stay?” James continued. “That’s exciting.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jamie. Minnie said she needs me at least until winter holidays. I can’t blame her, I know if I were in her shoes I would _need_ me too.”

“Gross.”

“But yeah, I suppose so. Hey, do you like your job? Have I ever asked you that?”

James pulled back the shower curtain again, this time all the way, looking completely dumbfounded. “Have you been _Imperio_ -ed?Who are you and what have you done with Padfoot?”

“Oh, come on.” Sirius scoffed at the theatrics, but inwardly grimaced. “Am I really that bad a friend?”

James turned the water off now, and stretched to reach for the wand he had left on the bathroom sink. Sirius observed that he probably would have flung less water on the floor had he just walked to it quickly, but he didn’t say so.

Upon grasping the wand, James pointed it to himself and silently dried off. “You’re not a bad friend,” he said decisively. “But no, you haven’t asked me if I like my job before.”

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, and meant it. “I think I didn’t realize people worked because they liked to. Or maybe not liked to, but, I don’t know—purpose, drive, all that.”

James nodded, now walking past him and into his bedroom, still naked. “Yeah, well. Some people with a lot of money don’t need to work, but they still do, for those reasons,” he said loftily.

“Yeah,” Sirius echoed, now studying the paint on the ceiling until James had dressed.

“But to answer your overdue question, yes, I love my job. I love teaching kids to fly, and I’m excited to be a dad someday.”

“Woah there, okay, slow down a bit, we’re way too young for all of that.”

“Pads, we’re in our twenties.”

“Exactly!” Sirius cried. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to settle down with someone before the dad bit? I thought we agreed Madam Pomfrey was out of your league.”

“Why are you like this?” James asked, amusement obvious in his voice. 

Sirius laughed.

“And for your information, I _have_ found someone,” James added.

“You’re kidding,” Sirius deadpanned. He turned his line of sight back to James reflexively, but thankfully found him partly clothed. “Why didn’t—who—what?”

James laughed. “Yeah, uh, well. We haven’t had our first date yet, so—”

“Wait, what? You’ve found someone to marry and have little sprogs with but you haven’t even had a single date? Does she know your name?”

James blushed. “Bugger off, and yes she knows my name, thank you.”

“Well?”

James smiled a little dopily. He really did have it bad— _yikes_ , Sirius thought. “She’s beautiful,” James said. “Red hair. The new Muggle Studies professor, Lily Evans. Wicked smart.”

“Okay, I think I’ve figured out why you haven’t had a date yet,” Sirius decided. James looked up eagerly. “Put those descriptions in a different order. Maybe start with her name and job. The smart thing can stay, but keep the others to yourself until you’re actually on that first date. Even then, don’t point out the red hair, that’s just…” He shrugged to finish the sentence.

“Okay.” James enthusiastically nodded. “You’ll meet her tonight!”

“Tell me more about her,” Sirius prompted, falling backwards onto James’s partly-made bed. Despite his celebrated bachelor-ness, Sirius had a bit of a soft spot for love stories. “But maybe practice speaking with a little less chauvinism,” he added with a grin.

“Well, she was raised Muggle, and didn’t learn any magic until she was an adult.”

“A squib?” Sirius interrupted.

“No, tosser, and there’d be nothing wrong with it if she was.”

Sirius shrugged, realizing that James was right.

“I don’t know, her family must not have wanted her to learn magic or something. But that’s why she’s the Muggle Studies professor, since she’s totally been there, you know?” James sounded thoroughly impressed by this, as if she were a war general who had “really been” to the frontlines. 

“An experience few Muggle-borns would have,” Sirius tried to add innocently, but James shot him a glare before continuing.

“Apparently her passion is Potions or something though, because she apprentices with Snape when she’s not teaching.”

“Wait, what?” Sirius demanded, turning on his side. “That _slimeball_ is here?”

“Have you read a single letter I’ve sent you?” James asked. 

“All of them!” Sirius defended.

“Have you ever asked me about work before?” James raised his eyebrows, knowing he had won. 

“Fine.”

“Snape teaches Potions. Just started this year.”

“Do you prank him?” Sirius prompted eagerly.

“Of course not, I’m a teacher.” James frowned. “But yeah, I haven’t been able to get her alone because that git is always with her. I think they’ve become friends after spending all that time together.”

Sirius grabbed a pillow in advance, then asked with a sultry voice, “Do you think he _tutors_ her?” He blocked James’s immediate attack with the pillow.

Eventually the men ceased their fight on James’s bed, and Sirius even _Reparro_ -edthe pillow from the damage of James’s hex.

“Let’s go to the Great Hall, yeah? For dinner?” James asked.

“Sure,” Sirius answered, opening James’s closet to look at his coats. “I’m borrowing this,” he announced after picking one, and James’s further-off voice answered an indifferent affirmative.

***

Walking into the bustling Great Hall with James at his side again felt familiar in a good way, Sirius decided. They walked past the Gryffindor table, at which James gave many fist bumps and high fives, before landing at the staff table at the end. Sirius noted that one end of the table had Severus Snape, in the flesh, sitting next to the woman who could only be Lily Evans. On the other side of Dumbledore sat McGonagall and Lupin.

James went for the end with Snivellus, and Sirius was prompted to drag him towards McGonagall and Lupin instead, the former having beckoned the pair already, unbeknownst to a star-struck James. 

“Professor Potter, good to see you,” McGonagall said politely. “I hope you had a nice afternoon with Mr. Black.”

“Cheers Professor,” James returned, and pivoted again towards the chairs on the other side of Lily. Sirius pulled him into a chair to his left, after taking the empty one next to Professor Lupin for himself.

“Good to see you too, Minnie!” Sirius smiled, and could have sworn he saw Remus roll his eyes quickly. Whether it was fond or exasperated was yet to be determined.

“Mr. Black, welcome back. I hear you had a successful first day with Professor Lupin, and are enthusiastic about staying with us for the remainder of the year.” Minerva punctuated the sentence by handing a platter of chicken to Remus.

“He is?” James asked, surprised. 

“Until winter hols, yes,” Sirius corrected. 

Sirius noted with amusement that Remus was still holding the chicken, looking confused by it. Minerva was now brandishing a bowl of potatoes at him, despite him still having two hands on the plate. “For James, dear,” she clarified. “I know he works up an appetite with his flying.”

Sirius rolled his eyes dramatically, but took the platter from Remus’s hands to set in front of James all the same. He always knew Minnie had a favorite Marauder, but at least James still didn’t seem to know.

“Mr. Black,” McGonagall began. “You’ll have to speak with the headmaster about the payment details, although your room and board will certainly be provided for.”

“Cheers,” Sirius cut in. “I’m not really concerned with what the salary is or isn’t, to be honest. Remus, care to pass a bloke the bread?”

Remus silently picked up the bread basket and slammed it down in front of him at the same moment James’s elbow dug into Sirius’s ribs. Clearly, he had made some sort of faux pas, but didn’t yet know what it was.

“So,” Minerva said. “Accomodations wise: if you follow me after dinner I can get you set up with a room, with the help of a few house elves.”

“Oh,” Sirius exclaimed. “I thought I’d just bunk with James, but sure, that’s fine.”

“You’re not sleeping with me,” James pronounced, looking embarrassed. “You kick.”

From his side, Sirius heard Remus stifle a laugh. “Charming,” he said in his deep lilting voice.

After a brief pause, McGonagall spoke again. “Yes, you’ll have your own room, with its own office and all. I wouldn’t trust you and Mr. Potter to get any work done if you were actually living together.”

James sputtered. “ _Mister_ Potter? He’s back for one day and I’m already demoted? Minnie, please. I’m an angel compared to him.”

Minerva laughed, but was soon pulled into a conversation with Dumbledore. 

“Well,” a deep voice eventually said. “I thought now might be a good time to speak about a bit of curriculum, Sirius. If you’re still not worried about your paycheck.”

Ah, Sirius thought. There it is. He knew he had a bit of a blindspot about money, so that must have been where his earlier mistake was. He made a conscious effort to not talk about his finances in front of Remus again. 

“Sure,” Sirius answered. “What are your classes like tomorrow?”

***

After dinner, Sirius was shown his new room. One of the house elves was apparently friends with the two working at Alphard’s mansion, and was more than happy to Apparate over to retrieve Sirius’s belongings. Upon being asked, Sirius realized he didn’t have much that he was actually tied to, per se. He asked for his broomstick and some clothes, and somehow felt embarrassed by the admission in front of McGonagall. 

“I’ll be back in just a bit, Sirius,” she told him before leaving him in the empty, but clean, quarters.

She returned with three books on defensive magic, another on poems by a Muggle author, and a small houseplant. Sirius felt touched by the kind gesture that was certainly beyond her required hospitality as an employer. He felt the need to compensate with a joke. “That plant isn’t going to try to strangle me in my sleep is it?”

McGonagall rolled her eyes, as if seeing through Sirius’s coping mechanism. “Pomona picked it, not me, so I’m sure it’s one you won’t be able to kill with neglect, and it won’t kill you either.”

“I wasn’t _awful_ at Herbology,” Sirius defended. “The thing with the Mandrakes was only once or twice.”

“An analytical mind, trying things again to see if you achieve the same result? Probably damaged poor Pettigrew’s hearing, you know.”

Sirius gave a small smile, suddenly realizing how tired he was, and sat down on the newly-made bed.

“Well, have a good night, then, Mr. Black,” McGonagall said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast.” She walked to the doorway to let herself out, seeing as Sirius was still flopped onto his bed. “It’s good to have you back at Hogwarts, you know,” she added with a wry smile before departing, closing the door behind her.


	2. Jezebel

Sirius woke early the next morning, and found it surprisingly easy to get out of bed. It wasn’t that the unfamiliar mattress was uncomfortable—quite the contrary: he was just excited for the day. 

About halfway through his morning shower he remembered Alphard, and wondered if his uncle knew where he was, or cared. Aside from both being black sheeps of the Black family, the two didn’t have much in common. They mostly kept to their halves of the mansion, and wouldn’t be dying for each other’s company after a prolonged absence. He wondered what Alphard would think of his new situation. He probably wouldn’t be too impressed; working for unnecessary payment was never a point at which his uncle disagreed with his family. Mentally, Sirius corrected himself: passion, drive, and determination, not working for unnecessary payment.

Shrugging, he got out of the shower and dressed. He chose clothes that he didn’t think Hogwarts professors were necessarily _encouraged_ to wear, but figured he would get away with for the time being: slacks and an untucked button down shirt. After a few weeks of mild compliance he could probably just wear his old band tees and black jeans again.

Passing the only mirror aside from the small one in the bathroom—there would have to be more, he decided, if he was going to stay—Sirius checked his appearance. Spontaneously remembering Lupin from the day before, Sirius tied his hair up into a loose bun. He checked the fit of his pants—rather nicely in the back, if he were to be honest—and decided to tuck the shirt in after all. That bit, however, had nothing to do with Lupin, he assured himself.

In his newfound eagerness to seize the day, Sirius arrived at breakfast before much of the staff. Professor Pomona Sprout was nodding increasingly politely at Professor Trelawney, who appeared to be explaining a phenomenon of grave danger for botanical specimens everywhere. Making a wide berth, Sirius made a mental note to thank Sprout for the plant at a more convenient time. Instead, he found himself pulling out a chair next to Professor Evans, who had a bowl of porridge and an open book in front of her.

“Hullo, don’t believe we’ve met yet,” he offered.

She looked up and smiled warmly. “I’m Lily, nice to meet you.”

“Sirius Black, nice to meet you too. I hear you teach Muggle Studies?” 

“I do! I’m a bit of a Muggle myself, to be honest, having never attended magical school before, so I’m kind of trying to learn everything the students are as well. Minerva reckons I’m about a second year’s skill level in Transfiguration,” she let on with a grin. 

Sirius nodded congenially. “Well, if you need flying lessons, James Potter is your man. Taught me how to fly years ago, and it’s felt totally natural ever since.” This was not entirely true, but Sirius figured that loyalty to his brother was worth the sacrifice of his own integrity.

Lily, to his surprise, shook her head, eyes wide. “Flying sounds absolutely terrifying. I’ve never been remotely interested in trying it.”

Sirius tried to stifle his laugh. Poor James, he thought. “Well, first time for everything and all that.”

Lily nodded. “Potions is absolutely fascinating to me though. I studied chemistry in Muggle school, and it’s amazing how similar and yet different the two are.” 

“Well,” Sirius tried again, “if you ever need a break from the dungeons, the Quidditch pitch has plenty of fresh air.”

Lily absentmindedly nodded, but was frowning at her porridge. “It’s gone cold,” she said regretfully. 

Sirius smiled. “Well?”

“What?”

“Are you a witch?”

“Oh my god!” Lily laughed, and retrieved her wand from her robes. “I’ve forgotten the spell, I confess. Don’t tell Professor Flitwick!”

Sirius leaned in conspiratorially and whispered “I’d never. It’s _Focillo_.”

Lily performed the spell, took an experimental bite, then smiled back to Sirius. “Thank you _so_ much.”

Oh no. “Oh, it was absolutely nothing,” Sirius said, already scooting backwards in his chair.

Lily lightly tapped her hand on his forearm and gave him another smile. “Well, I appreciate it, Sirius.”

The way she said his name made him want to jump out of his skin. He was no stranger to having women flirt with him, but he certainly did not want this specific woman to flirt with him. His eyes darted about the room, looking for familiar assistance but somehow also hoping James hadn’t seen. Instead, he found someone else.

“Well. Mr. Sirius Black is back at Hogwarts. Aren’t we all saved now.” Snape spoke the words slowly and evenly, voice void of emotion.

“Morning, Sev,” Lily said brightly, appearing to either ignore or miss Snape’s jab at Sirius. 

“Good morning, _Sev_ ,” Sirius repeated, with faux enthusiasm. The quick taunt came to him easily, and Sirius saw no reason to hold it back.

“Don’t.” Snape enunciated.

“Do you two know each other?” Lily asked as Snape took the chair on her other side. 

“I had the—circumstantial—luck of attending Hogwarts in the same year as Mr. Black _and_ Professor Potter.” The way Snape speaks must waste a lot of time, Sirius decided, but he had to admit it really sold the aesthetic of a creepy old vampire, even if he was the same age as Sirius. “I can tell you plenty of—childish—stories about the _both_ of them.”

Lily nodded slowly, as if finally sensing the discomfort at the table. 

Thankfully, Lupin arrived a moment later, and Sirius quickly moved seats to sit by him instead, feigning the need to discuss lesson plans. Good luck, James, he thought once more.

***

One entire morning of lessons later, Sirius felt surprisingly tired. Working with the students, even when just observing Lupin’s lectures, somehow felt simultaneously energizing and sapping. He found that he enjoyed the work, and if he had to guess, he would say that most of the students seemed to enjoy his presence too. Little jokes came easily to him, as they often did, and Sirius felt confident making them (not unkindly) at the expense of some older students, or on occasion, Professor Lupin himself.

Lupin didn’t seem to mind, and if anything, seemed perhaps happy to have Sirius there as well. In any case, he looked much better than the day before. “Feeling less tired?” Sirius asked, as the last students left the room, likely in search of lunch. Upon a confused look, he tacked on “than yesterday, I mean.”

“Right,” Lupin nodded. “Yeah, sleep helped.”

“You heading down to lunch?” Sirius asked. “I think I could use some caffeinated tea, and perhaps a sandwich.”

Remus’s face flickered for just a moment, and Sirius was sure he was going to agree. Instead, he shook his head. “No, you go ahead though. I might pop down to the kitchens in a bit. I want to get a bit of grading done here.”

Trying to shake off the refusal, and then also shake off the unsuspected disappointment in hearing the refusal, Sirius picked up his bag and made his way towards the door. “I could bring something back for you?” he propositioned, then kicked himself for asking. If the man doesn’t want to eat then he can stay here, there’s no need for Sirius to suddenly abandon his entire cool persona in favor of mother-henning a grown man. Even if he had battle scars. And even if Sirius inexplicably wanted his approval. 

“Thanks,” Remus said distractedly, already sitting at his desk again. “If you think of it, but no worries if not.”

“Great,” Sirius said. He left the room, hoping to sit with James this time, instead of with Jezebel Evans and Slimy Snape. And great, now he has to worry about bringing food up to dear old Professor Lupin. Why did he have to offer? 

Nonetheless, caffeine beckoned, and with the promise of it and food, Sirius took the moving stairs two at a time. 

***

After Sirius had lunch with James, didn’t tell him about the specifics of his conversation with Lily, but did tell him about his own putting in a good word, he found himself once again walking to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He brought a sandwich, wrapped in paper, and two cookies; one chocolate and one peanut butter. 

Sirius had planned to eat both on the way to the classroom, but felt discouraged by James’s declaration of “clean eating” to “preserve his body,” a sentiment that had never been expressed as a teenager. James, Sirius, and Peter would often sample each of the deserts at all meals, and on quite a few occasions visit the kitchens at night. In a true demonstration of mental fortitude, Sirius ate the peanut butter one while walking, but left the chocolate companion for Remus.

By the time he was pushing the door open, he realized that he didn’t know if Remus had any allergies, and it was quite possible that the chocolate cookie had been tainted with peanut particles. Lupin would be aware of the fact if he had seen both together originally, but now there was just the one to show. Sirius was trying to figure out how best to ask about allergies without giving away his gluttony when a deep and lilting voice called from further back in the room. 

“Up here!” Lupin said.

Sirius walked through the rows of desks and up the flight of stairs into what he knew was Lupin’s office. 

“I brought some lunch back,” Sirius proposed, not moving past the door. 

“Cheers, thank you.” Remus sat behind a second desk, this time peering over old parchment. This office had even more magical creatures along the surrounding walls than the classroom. A Bowtruckle, perhaps the same one from the classroom, was standing on Remus’s shoulder.

Sirius stayed frozen, and eventually Remus looked up at him. “It’s a sandwich and a peanut butter cookie,” he said, watching the other man’s face carefully.

“Thanks,” Remus eventually said, clearly waiting for Sirius to bring it forward.

Determining a peanut allergy to be highly unlikely at this point, he finally walked forward. Upon presenting it, Sirius made a theatrical display of discovering that it was instead a chocolate cookie, and he must have grabbed from the other platter without realizing. If Lupin noticed his play-acting, he didn’t call him on it. Instead, he looked to be very happy with the discovery.

After eating the cookie and a few bites of the sandwich, Remus stood and began walking towards the door. Sirius moved to let him pass, then followed him down the stone stairs. 

“We’ve got a practical day for the sixth years up next, followed by a test for the second years,” he explained. “Final lesson is for the first years, and it’ll be mostly dialogue.”

“Like, talking to them?” Sirius clarified.

“Inquiry-based education,” Remus explained, and Sirius nodded, making a note to look up the term later. “But for the sixth years, we’ll be practicing nonverbal protection spells. I’m thinking of a short demonstration at the start of class. Are you game?”

Sirius turned to the side to briefly hide his blush—having mistakenly heard the last word for an-almost homonym. He nodded eventually. “I can cast a nonverbal protection charm,” he tried to say nonchalantly, while also puffing his chest ever-so slightly. 

Remus huffed a quiet laugh as he coaxed the Bowtruckle down from his shoulder. “You just have to cast an _Expelliarmus_.I’ll worry about the nonverbal protection charm.”

“Fine by me,” Sirius said airily. He then couldn’t help but to add, “Did you want the _Expelliarmus_ to be nonverbal too?”

“Since I’m not asking them to do that part, I’ll decline. But color me impressed by your nonverbal magic skills,” Remus added, sounding amused. He was still focusing on the Bowtruckle, who was now apparently deciding between entering his enclosure of his own volition or testing Remus’s patience. The creature made a face at Sirius as it clung to Remus’s large hand.

Sirius laughed a little at being caught by Remus, and shrugged. “You got it; you’re in charge.”

Once the class filed in, Remus became the stodgy and well-liked Professor Lupin, and he introduced Sirius for what felt like the hundredth time, since these students hadn’t seen him the day before. Lupin guided everyone through some technique and nonverbal magic tricks and advice, before turning to Sirius.

“And now, for a quick demonstration of what you will be doing in pairs. One partner, Mr. Black”—he gestured—“will attempt to disarm the other partner, myself, using an audible _Expelliarmus_ , while the defender _nonverbally_ blocks it. When you’re ready, Mr. Black,” Remus said, looking at Sirius. 

Since the other man had his wand in his hand and claimed to be ready, Sirius brandished his own and aimed at him. He felt a bit bad about it, and knew he would die of second-hand embarrassment if poor Lupin didn’t manage to block it. Nonetheless, he pointed at Lupin and spoke clearly, “ _Expelliarmus_!”

Lupin flicked the spell away with ease, and Sirius felt such a raw power emanate from the rare display of the man’s magic that he took a step backwards in surprise. Dumbfounded, Sirius stared at Lupin for the entire moment it took him to instruct students to partner up and spread about the room. 

“Thanks for the demo,” Remus offered.

“Yeah,” Sirius replied slowly. “You are very, very strong.”

Remus laughed a bit but looked slightly unnerved, as if Sirius had found out something he wasn’t supposed to know. By the time Sirius had recovered from his stupor, Remus was at the other end of the room, conversing with students. Sirius decided to do the same, and ambled over to a pair of Ravenclaws looking frustrated. Few students seemed to be successful so far, as the room was currently a maelstrom of flying wands.

“How is it going over here?” he asked after they stopped to look up at him.

“Neither of us get it,” one girl complained. 

Sirius nodded. He thought briefly of Peter, and of a time long ago when Sirius and his friends were their age. Dully, Sirius realized he hadn’t been the most compassionate to Peter when the smaller boy didn’t get something that came easily to himself and James. Sirius had spent a good portion of the last day and a half thinking critically about his own past and future, and he didn’t like that fact. Procrastinating his mental gymnastics, he instead focused on the two students in front of him. He can’t go back in time, but he can help them.

“Nonverbal magic is difficult because it requires more concentration than verbal magic,” he explained. For all he knew, Lupin had already said this, but to be honest he hadn’t been paying the closest attention. 

The students nodded.

“What are you thinking about, when your partner says _Expelliarmus_?”

The girls looked at each other, slightly unsure. “Blocking it?” one of them said.

Sirius smiled a bit, before asking, “Really?”

The other brushed her foot along a line in the wooden floor before speaking softly. “About not getting disarmed.”

Closer, but not quite, Sirius guessed. “If I were you, I would be thinking that I didn’t want my classmates to see me fail.” From the looks on their faces, he was right, and he surprised not only them but also himself with his sudden honesty.

“But you can’t focus on that,” Sirius said. “You need to focus on blocking the spell, and that’s it. Not what was for breakfast, or an overdue essay.” One of them groaned at that, and Sirius smiled. “But just blocking the spell. Want to try that?”

The girls nodded, and turned towards each other once more. One shouted the spell, and the other stayed quiet. But this time, no wand flew into the air. They grinned and thanked him, and Sirius walked away, smiling. If they hadn’t been successful, he would’ve had to pitch himself off the astronomy tower for saying such an _old person_ thing. _Really_ , he thought, shuddering at his line about _breakfast_ and _homework_. 

The rest of the class period went by quickly, and soon fewer and fewer wands were being tossed up into the air. Sirius inexplicably felt happier and happier. After it ended, and everyone except himself and Remus had left, Sirius was almost skipping. 

“That was awesome,” he couldn’t help but express.

Remus smiled. “Yeah, thanks for your help on that, it went better than I had hoped.”

Sirius nodded. “Next class is a test, right? Do you want me to proctor it, if you’ve got other things to do?” _Who are you and what have you done with Sirius Black,_ James’s words from yesterday echoed in his mind. Maybe it was all the sugar he had at lunch.

“No, but thank you,” Remus returned. “Maybe we could grade a few essays from last week together, though, during it? I could show you my rubric and grading criteria.”

“Yeah, sure, sounds good.” Too many affirmatives, Sirius thought. 

“Okay.”

The next class entered, on time but looking a little less Lupin-fan-club-y than others, likely due to their impending examination. Sirius would sympathize, but he himself had always seemed to do well on tests with or without much preparation, so he shrugged it off. Tests were distributed, the room became silent and somber, and Remus rejoined Sirius at the front of the room. The Bowtruckle made a reappearance on Remus’s shoulder. 

Remus gestured to a second chair beside his own, and Sirius sat. Soon, Sirius felt himself wrapped in a nonverbally-cast silencing spell.

He almost blushed at the memory of the last time he had put such a spell to use, but was distracted enough by the force he felt from this one. Something was seriously different about Remus’s command of magic. 

“So,” Remus said, producing a stack of parchment. “I’ll walk you through the first couple of papers, and then turn you loose with your own and we can compare after you get a few graded?”

“Sounds good,” Sirius whispered, never quite able to shake the odd feeling associated with speaking loudly while within a silencing spell, especially when there were two dozen students taking a test and needing peace and quiet to do so. 

“The spell will hold, don’t worry,” Remus said mildly. The Bowtruckle chirped, as if in a vote of confidence.

“I trust you.” Sirius laughed. “And you too,” he added, looking at the Bowtruckle.

“He has a cold,” Remus explained. “Otherwise he would be in his enclosure.” The Bowtruckle narrowed its tiny eyes, as if to display indignance.

They ended up working through the stack of parchment quickly, and Sirius got to observe increasingly-frantic test-takers in their last minutes of time. The enchanted hourglass Lupin had set loomed large in front of them, and many students glanced up at it with a grimace.

“Do you set hard exams?” Sirius asked, suddenly curious.

“No,” Remus answered. “They’re just stressed because they know they can do better. They all know the content, they just have to retrieve it and articulate it.”

Sirius nodded, feeling a bit like a fish out of his water again. Tonight he planned to discreetly look up “inquiry-based education” and “how to set tests.” With any luck, Madam Pince would take pity on him and just explain the concepts without him having to read any books.

No, he corrected, with any luck Madam Pince would allow him back in her library at all, or maybe just forget about a few of his antics in seventh year. Upon his eventual release from Lupin’s classroom however, which was after an easy final lesson and a bit of light banter between Sirius and Remus (and another bit of Sirius offering to help with more work and Remus declining), Sirius did not go to the library. Instead, he beelined for James.

The Quidditch pitch looked empty, and no one answered the door of James’s quarters, so Sirius _Alohamora_ -ed his way in. He found James laying on his bed, with a muggle record player propped up and spinning. _A perfect opportunity_ , Sirius thought. 

“Jesus buggering fuck—” James sputtered as he finally saw Sirius crawling across the floor towards him. “Why didn’t you knock, what the—”

Sirius went for the kill, turning into Padfoot mid-leap, and landed on top of James. The pair wrestled for a moment, before James began to scratch behind Padfoot’s left ear and the dog was effectively paralyzed. When James finally pushed him away, Sirius transformed back. 

“I can’t believe you just barged in,” James repeated. “I could have been with a girl, you know.”

Sirius barked a laugh, then shook his head a bit, trying to clear away his dog-tendencies. “Please, Jamie. You haven’t even gotten her to go on a single date, I think we’re very far away from any naughty business.”

“Don’t call it that,” James said through an amused grimace.

Sirius laughed, and the pair silently listened to the music that had continued through the interruption.

“Hey, were we mean to Pete?” he suddenly asked.

“What?”

“I don’t know.” Sirius frowned. “He didn’t really come as easily into a lot of the stunts we pulled. Flying, most magic, too. I don’t know.”

James studied Sirius for a long moment. “I think he was happy to be our friend, and I don’t think he minded that he didn’t get some stuff as quickly as you and I did. We helped him catch up, for the most part.”

“You did,” Sirius corrected. “I didn’t.”

James nodded slowly. “You, are thinking critically.”

Sirius pushed his shoulder. “You sound like Minnie.”

“But you are.”

“Yeah. Maybe. I kind of feel like I wasn’t in the real world, for a while there. Living at Alphard’s, mainly. Is that weird?”

James shook his head. “I think that’s pretty astute. You were extremely sheltered, and didn’t really have a lot that you were invested in.” Sirius frowned, and James called him on it. “No, I’m saying this as your brother and I love you, you know that. But I think this teaching thing could be really good for you.”

“Yeah? I think you may be right.”

James nodded, and flopped back on the bed again, apparently paying attention to the music once more. 

“If I was a prat, why didn’t you pull me out of it?” Sirius wondered. He partly didn’t want to hear a response, or just not one that confirmed his former prattiness. 

“Because I’m your brother and I love you,” James returned. Sirius felt touched, but also saddened by the confirmation. It was sudden, but it was deep. It was the feeling of wanting to go home but knowing that your home no longer exists, or at least that it is no longer accessible to you. 

“Yeah,” Sirius eventually muttered.

“In any case, Pete is still alive. You could just send him a letter if you want?”

“Meh,” Sirius replied, flopping down beside James once more.

***

Remus wasn’t at dinner that night, and Sirius wondered if he often skipped meals. He briefly entertained the idea of bringing him something, but snapped out of the stupidity before he could even voice it to James. Professor Lupin was a grown man, and he can handle his own nourishment.

In any case, Sirius and James had arrived in the Great Hall a bit early, but not early enough. Lily had already arrived, and was seated between Snape and another young-ish witch whom Sirius hadn’t yet met. James’s sadness was palpable as they sat in the empty chairs between Professor Sprout and Dumbledore. 

“Wotcher, Albus,” Sirius said, because he thought he could get away with it.

Fortunately, the old man laughed. “Welcome back to Hogwarts, Mr. Black. Have you taken a liking to our dear Remus then?” 

Sirius sputtered, choking on the water he had just sipped. “What?”

Dumbledore had a little twinkle in his eye that Sirius definitely did not appreciate, but decided it was his penance for starting the conversation in such a Sirius way. “Merely, I meant are you compatible with his teaching style, my lad.”

“Cheers, sir, it’s been great,” Sirius choked out, then turned to his side. James, the tosser, hadn’t even been listening. Sirius wasn’t sure if he should be grateful that James had missed his overreaction to Dumbledore’s thinly veiled question, or offended that he could have very well choked to death, unaided and unloved, as James prattled on about magical plants and the pros and cons of mulch. He settled for a bit of both. 

In any case, Sirius hadn’t taken a liking to “dear Remus.” Liking someone’s voice and wondering how they became so strong with magic—and maybe wanting to know how he earned the scars, Sirius decided to tack on, if he was going to be making the list anyway—was far from infatuation. 

He wasn’t here for any nonsense with romance or its less emotional but more corporeal format, he was here to teach children. And be passionate and determined, and the other word Minnie had used. And find himself. In an effortful display of such virtues, Sirius did indeed go to the library that evening, and only had to flirt with Madam Pince a bit before she let him in. Eventually she even agreed to just tell him the information he was seeking, rather than make him die of boredom induced by reading textbooks.

Sirius was no stranger to books, and he knew how to appreciate a good steamy muggle romance novel (in public), or a somber book of poetry (if no one was watching), but reading textbooks published years before his own birth sounded synonymous with a slow death—maybe equivalent to crucifixion, or being struck repeatedly by a piece of timber.

Later that night, Sirius dreamt of Remus. It was a rather pleasant dream, quite pleasurable indeed, but when Sirius woke from it, he was both unnerved and in need of a _Scourgify_. It was still dark outside his small window, and he allowed himself to drift off again. When he woke in the morning from a—mercifully dreamless—second round of slumber, he opted to take a bracingly cold shower anyway.


	3. Growth Rings

Just before Sirius turned off the shower, he heard noise from outside the door.

“I’m in your room,” James’s voice called out. “Let’s go to breakfast, hurry up.”

“I’m in the shower, sod off!” Sirius replied.

“Is that an invitation?” James laughed.

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Sod off,” he said once more, after turning the water off. He dried himself with his wand before calling to James again. “Is the door to the hallway closed?”

“Yeah, why?”

In answer, Sirius opened the bathroom door. “Because I’m naked.”

James screamed his protest. “My eyes!”

“Shut up, you probably like it.” Sirius laughed. After getting dressed in a decidedly less formal outfit even than yesterday—with it being casual Friday and all—Sirius and James descended to the Great Hall. 

Sirius followed James on his slightly-less efficient route, to fist bump and high five plenty of Gryffindors—and a few Hufflepuffs—and was surprised to find a few greetings from students directed at himself. One of the students—whom he had witnessed her first successful shield charm—said to her friend, “Sirius is _awesome_.” He then decided it was time to start learning student names. Once James noticed the seating arrangement at the staff table, he quickened his hellos to a brief wave as he all but ran to the empty seat by Lily’s side. It would have been more endearing if the action didn’t leave Sirius seated between James and Professor Trelawney.

Thankfully, Sybill seemed to be distracted by her tea leaves. 

“Hey Sirius! Professor Potter,” Lily greeted.

“Just James is fine with me, as long as I can call you Lily,” James smooth-tongued. Sirius grimaced.

“Do you two have any weekend plans?” Lily asked. “I’m planning to lock myself in my classroom on Sunday to grade a million essays, but before that I am decidedly free.” She looked to Sirius as she made the last declaration.

“Hogsmeade trip?” James suggested. “We can make it a double date if Sirius can convince Minnie to tag along.” Sirius awarded James with a none-too-gentle elbow to the ribs.

“What’s your favorite shop in Hogsmeade, Lily?” Sirius asked. “I fear Minerva is out of my league, but I wouldn’t mind third-wheeling anyway.”

For that, James returned the elbow, and Sirius only partly obscured his grin.

“I like them all, honestly. And just walking among them, even in the cold air, it’s quite the experience. Nothing like it in Muggle London,” Lily answered.

“Is that where you’re from?” James eagerly guessed. “Because so am I, what a coincidence!”

Sirius would have taken the opportunity to pitch his friend under the bus for making such a foolish proclamation, but was distracted by the sight of Remus and Snape entering the Hall together. By reading lips, Sirius made out that Remus was thanking Snape profusely for something, and Snape was all-but sneering at him. Sirius felt his blood boil at the sight, but didn’t move from his spot at the table. Surely some injustice was being done, as no one should be casually accepting—or even disregarding—such a genuine display of gratitude.

He watched the men approach the staff table, Snape walking faster, leaving Lupin behind, and realized that Remus walked differently. Something in his gait leant itself to the subtle notion of him being older, or at least more experienced in this world. Remus sat somewhere on the other end of the table, but Sirius didn’t get to witness where exactly, as it would have required a much less subtle full-head turn.

Once Lupin was out of sight, Sirius tuned back into the conversation to his right. It was a bit quiet, and he dully realized Lily had asked him a question and he hadn’t replied. James started talking, and Sirius, half in embarrassment and half in thankless self-sacrifice for James, turned to his left to ask Trelawney about any impending doomsdays he should be concerned with.

One amusing monologue and plenty of stifled laughter later, Sirius found himself making his way up to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, alone. James had insisted on walking Lily to her office, despite her clear acknowledgement that the Quidditch pitch was in the opposite direction. If Sirius were to take an unbiased guess now, standing on the moving staircase between the second and third floors of Hogwarts school, about whether Lily Evans would ever go on a date with James, it would be a gentle no. Nonetheless, Sirius had a feeling that Lily was still operating under whatever new-to-magic naivety she harbored since first entering the school, and that she may be a more interesting person without that extra shell in place. But only if she didn’t flirt with him. Or talk to Snape.

“What’s today?” Sirius asked, upon stepping into the empty classroom. “Big plans? Hands on stuff? Books away and wands out? I know you said that was a Wednesday thing but honestly that’s way more fun for me, so…” 

Not hearing a reply, Sirius skipped up the stone stairs to Lupin’s office. To his surprise, Snape was just leaving. Sirius nearly tripped as he backed away in haste.

“Careful where you stumble, Black. Someone may think you are, drinking, on the job.” His accompanying sneer was palpable, but shock caused Sirius to step aside and let him pass.

“What was he doing here?” Sirius asked, finally walking into the room.

Remus turned to look at him only after hastily closing a drawer and pointing his wand to it. “Severus and I sometimes work together,” he offered as the only explanation.

“Why?”

Remus frowned, and Sirius got the sense that something was amiss. “Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions sometimes overlap. I’m sure you could figure that out.” The clipped words surprised Sirius, and he merely nodded.

After checking to see that Snape had indeed left the classroom, Sirius looked back at Remus once more. “He’s a bit of a git, you know.”

Thankfully, he was rewarded with a small smile, however rue it may be. “Nonetheless. Work.” Remus shrugged slightly.

“Yeah,” Sirius offered, filing away the interaction.

Classes that morning went well, even if Sirius felt a little restless during the more stationary ones in the beginning. The last one before lunch was his favorite, as it allowed the second years to pair up and fire spells at each other. Afterwards, Lupin announced he was hungry, and walked out of his classroom without further discussion. Only slightly surprised, Sirius followed along.

At the staff table, Sirius sat to the right of Remus, and Lily soon took the seat on the professor’s left. 

“Hi Remus,” she said warmly. “Hi Sirius.”

Sirius waved hello, and Remus returned the greeting. 

“Did you talk to Severus this morning? He and I were working on that thing last night, and I thought it was going to be super complicated, so I was a bit worried, to be honest, but it was super similar to a different process in Muggle chemistry.”

Sirius noticed that Remus looked a bit frozen in place while Lily spoke, and he only nodded minutely when it became clear she had reached the end of her statement.

“You know, Remus,” Lily continued. “I started wondering if combining Muggle chemistry with magical Potions would lead to some sort of—”

“Yes, Lily, thank you.” Lupin’s voice was sharp. It was clearly his professor voice—the one that didn’t broker any excuses or further distractions.

“Oh!” Lily seemed to realize something that Sirius was still yet to understand, and quickly whispered an apology before returning to her normal bubbly volume to inquire about Lupin’s weekend plans.

“Grading, as always, I’m afraid,” Remus said distractedly. Although the words could have still been cold, Sirius recognized that he had returned to his more genuine tone. 

“I could help with the grading,” Sirius offered, just before Lily excitedly tapped the table, looking at both of them.

“Come with us to Hogsmeade!” she enthused. “Tomorrow. James and Sirius and I talked about it this morning. You’ll come too, won’t you?”

Sirius noted that she had used James’s first name, something he would be proud to hear, and also noted that Lily was apparently close with Remus. Or perhaps she was just kind to everyone. Maybe she hadn’t been flirting with him after all?

Remus made a vague waffling sound, before Lily declared much more finally, “You’re coming too,” and the man nodded slightly.

***

In the middle of the afternoon, after Sirius was beginning to feel quite tired, Remus took pity on him by producing a teapot. He lit a blue flame under the kettle silently, and Sirius noticed that his hands were empty while doing so—his wand was sitting on his desk, a full meter away, with a sleeping pygmy-snake wrapped around it. When Remus poured two mugs and nodded for Sirius to grab one, he thanked him verbally, having finally recovered from his momentary speechlessness about the wandless magic. 

The tea was very strong, and Sirius could almost feel the caffeine taking effect. “You’re an angel,” Sirius blurted out. Remus rolled his eyes and turned back to his desk to put away the kettle. Sirius took advantage of that time by blushing—for some reason—out of sight. 

They drank their tea quickly, since the next class was coming soon, but before they arrived, Remus asked if Sirius wouldn’t mind doing some research in the library during the period. Since all he would be missing was a repeat of yesterday’s lecture to the other two houses of third year students, Sirius agreed. He set off with a list of books to retrieve, and concepts to “brush up on,” if he felt inclined to “jump in” during next week’s lectures. Never missing a chance to prove himself, or allow something that resembles a challenge to pass by unconquered, Sirius planned to master the concepts in the next hour, and be ready to lead lessons on the subjects with ease.

Upon arriving in the library and being presented with two large stacks of books from Madam Pince, Sirius revised his earlier private declaration: he would skim over the concepts and try to remember what he had learned years ago, in the hopes that he could answer the odd question or two about the subject with a fair degree of accuracy. He also found that he was not the only teacher studying up during the class time. A shock of red hair was bent over an even more daunting stack of Potions books at a large table.

Sirius could have avoided her, out of an abundance of caution, seeing as she had quite possibly been flirting with him—and not James—very recently, but his extraverted side won out, reasoning that he may not survive so much reading without a bit of conversation to keep him awake. When he set down his books, Lily looked up—marking her spot in one of the three open books in front of her with a pointer finger—and whispered a hello.

They worked in silence, and Sirius found himself to be surprisingly invested in some of the class content. Reading in preparation for taking a test proved to be a far different affair than reading to learn, and time flew without him realizing it. Eventually he looked up again, at the same time Lily was closing one of her books. 

“Excited for Hogsmeade?” she asked with a smile.

Sirius nodded. “Even though Minnie won’t be my date for it,” he returned.

Lily rolled her eyes in amusement. “That line about the double date really was awful, you know.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Sorry?”

She laughed. After a stern glance from Madam Pince, she brought her volume down to a whisper again. “Just being honest.”

“Lily,” Sirius said slowly. “I like blokes, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” she said casually.

“What?”

“Oh, sorry!” She held her hands out, as if placating him. “Would you prefer I be more surprised? I never would have guessed. Your identity is ambiguous and mysterious, like, the wind. Or, an invisible horse.”

Sirius frowned, but soon felt the corners of his lips lifting of their own accord. “Thestrals?” was all he could think to say. “I’m sorry, I guess I thought you were flirting with me,” he reasoned, still feeling a bit confused.

“I was happy to meet somebody new,” Lily corrected. “I’m sure you’re totally charming, but I’m honestly more in the market for friends at the moment anyway.”

Sirius nodded. “Sorry for assuming. But, yeah, friends, for sure.”

Lily smiled. “To be honest, when I first saw you, I was hoping you’d also be a bit new to magic. But then I found out from Sev that you actually went to this school, so,” she finished the statement with a shrug, but she was still smiling.

“Yeah,” Sirius said slowly. “Is it rough then, being new to magic?” He was reminded of the students he had been helping in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and again of his own prior disregard for Peter.

“A bit?” Lily questioned. “But, no, it’s great, really. I’m not stressing to catch up to the other staff in anything. I love teaching, and Muggle Studies comes easily, obviously. And Potions is insanely interesting to me. Honestly my life has made so much more sense after Dumbledore approached me last summer. What with the accidental magic and all.”

Sirius grinned, nodding. That, at least, he could relate to.

“But the only thing I could complain about, I suppose, is that some people seem to think I’m just naive. Which, to be fair, I am, but it’s not the only thing I am,” she defended. 

“Yeah,” Sirius said. “Sorry?”

Lily shrugged. “You haven’t really done anything wrong. It’s small, but it adds up.”

“I know about that feeling quite well. Small, but adds up, that is.”

“Microaggressions,” Lily enunciated.

Sirius nodded. Micro didn’t really describe the aggressions he was familiar with from the majority of his biological family, but the term definitely applied to much of his experience as an unapologetically gay man.

“Hey,” Sirius said, realizing. “Has James been doing that?”

Lily’s face made a few expressions he couldn’t put a name to, before it settled on pensive. “Not really,” she said slowly.

“Has Snape told you something about him?”

That time, Sirius easily recognized her pained expressions. It started as surprise, then morphed into a bit of guilt. “Yeah,” she finally answered, frowning. “But, he also talked about you as well. Sorry,” she interjected, preventing his barrage of questions or complaints against Snape, “but I’ve started to realize that what he said about you isn’t all true, so I’m now questioning what he has said about James as well.”

“He’s a git.”

Lily breathed in. “I understand that you weren’t friends when you were in school,” she said diplomatically. “But he hasn’t told me why, or what happened, if anything.”

“What happened is he’s a git.”

Lily sighed. “He was my closest friend here, but he recently said a few things that I really disagree with.”

“About me, then. He’s the one who told you? That I’m gay. Although I bet he didn’t use that word.” Sirius smiled saccharinely.

“Yeah.” Lily grimaced. “And also some other stuff about Re—um,” she stopped herself, and suddenly Sirius desperately wanted to know what she was going to say. “I don’t know. I want to give you and James a chance without thinking of what Severus has said, and I hope we can have that tomorrow.”

“What were you going to say?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I—” she made a pained expression again. “Nothing,” she said in a tone that brokered no argument. 

Surprised, Sirius nodded, and then began to smile. “I like non-naive Lily,” he declared. “Be more assertive like that. It’s good.”

Lily laughed. “Okay then.”

When the class period ended soon after, Sirius went back to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, bearing both the books he had been asked to retrieve and the ones he had found the most interesting. The rest of the afternoon classes went by easily enough. During the last one Remus asked him to do another demonstration with him, modeling the proper form for a duel. Sirius once again got to experience the oddly strong magic emanating from the other man, this time as he blocked one of Sirius’s disarming spells before allowing the other to hit him squarely. 

Lupin had told the students what the sequence of events would be, and how he wouldn’t attempt to block the second _Expelliarmus_ , but Sirius didn’t believe it until he saw the other man’s wand flying into the air. From the few displays of magic he had seen so far, Sirius doubted he would be able to disarm Lupin if he had not wanted to be disarmed.

After class, Sirius was still buzzing with the energy from helping so many students perform magic. “We should start a dueling club or something!” he suggested. “For the students who are interested. Just teach them basic protective spells, maybe get a few mannequins for things like stunning spells?”

Remus nodded in thought. “That’s not a bad idea.”

“Maybe just once a week or something? We could just use the classroom, or outside, if it’s warmer.”

“I’ll have to speak with Dumbledore about it,” Remus said, nodding again.

“You need Dumbledore’s permission? Something tells me he won’t mind,” Sirius joked, as he paced in front of Remus’s desk.

Lupin ducked out of view briefly, and Sirius heard a desk drawer open and close. “And the permission of the school’s governors.”

“Woah,” Sirius said, now leaning back on a student desk. “No fun allowed, then. Maybe we should send letters home first, too. Wrap the kids in bubble wrap.” Sirius laughed a bit after making the satirical suggestions, but frowned internally at Remus’s sudden rule-abiding stodginess.

After a brief silence, Sirius looked up to meet Remus’s cold eyes. “Some of us do not have the ability to make dumb mistakes and keep their standing in life. Losing everything because a simple procedure is not followed would definitely be ‘no fun,’” he quoted. 

Sirius winced, thinking of his family’s money and name, and Remus’s lack of the same. “Sorry,” he tried.

Remus frowned. “It’s okay. Just—please don’t talk to anyone about the idea until I get approval for it. I like it, and I think it’ll work, but we have to do it the right way.”

Dully, Sirius nodded, feeling vaguely chastised and embarrassed, but made a conscious effort to move on from it. 

“Dinner?” Sirius suggested, and Remus nodded.

They made their way down to the Great Hall in relative silence, and eventually took their seats next to James and Lily. Thankfully, the pair was animatedly discussing something. Sirius had been excited for James before he was within hearing range, but soon found that their conversation (which was more of a debate) was about the impracticality of playing sports while hovering unprotected, tens of meters above the ground.

“No luck thus far, apparently,” Remus offered to Sirius conspiratorially. 

Smiling both at the jest and of being back in the other man’s good graces, Sirius nodded. “But not for lack of trying. Or subterfuge, to be honest.” Sirius took a quick glance towards where Severus Snape was speaking with a few older students at the Slytherin table, before turning back to Remus. Evidently noticing the look, Remus’s brow quirked briefly before settling into place.

“Interesting,” he eventually offered.

“Thank _god_ you’re here,” Lily announced, looking at Remus, effectively interrupting James mid-word. “Tell James why flying is ridiculous.”

Sirius gasped and turned to Remus at his side. “You don’t like flying?”

“Oh, great,” Lily deadpanned. “Now it’s two versus two.”

Remus laughed a little, while reaching for a nearby dish. “No, I’m not the biggest fan of flying, I confess. Quidditch can be entertaining to watch, I’ll grant you, but I’ve never been interested in being one of the dozen players actually on the broom.”

“Seven,” James corrected. “On each side.”

“Well I much prefer playing to watching,” Sirius announced. “Why is watching acceptable but playing isn’t?”

James shot Sirius a quick look, one that, over a decade of brother-like closeness, was easily understood to be _why do you care so much about asking him?_

Remus swirled the water in his glass while exhaling, then looked briefly to Lily before answering. “It just seems dangerous, I suppose.”

“Oh, come on,” Sirius said through a surprised laugh. “Dangerous? You teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, you go on secret research missions, but you’re afraid of danger? You’ve got the battle scars to prove yourself wrong.”

Sirius looked to his side after a nanosecond of silence and found Remus’s face frozen in place. Just past him, Lily was studying her fork very intently, with tightly pursed lips. Past her, James was giving Sirius a sad look, one which translated to _you said the wrong thing, sorry mate._

“Sorry,” Sirius said suddenly. “I didn’t mean to—um. I didn’t think. Um.” He paused for a prolonged exhale. His side of the table was still silent, and Sirius reverted to one of his pre-programmed responses to such a period of awkward silence. “Speaking of dangerous flying, one time I got knocked off my broom, and felt like a right ponce during my long fall. Luckily James swooped in and caught me though.”

Lily tried for a lighthearted laugh. “Sounds romantic,” she jested.

From her side, James snorted. “It most certainly wasn’t. Sirius was screaming the whole time, and he didn’t stop even after he was clinging to my back like a koala.”

At this, Sirius noticed the corner of Lupin’s mouth twitch upwards, and realized he was quite possibly on the path towards normalcy once more. Sirius made a mental note to not discuss Remus’s scars—adding it to the existing list containing “discussing his finances” and “having purpose and drive.”

The rest of the dinner went much more smoothly than the start, and—slightly to Sirius’s surprise—it ended with plans made for the four of them to depart for Hogsmeade right after breakfast the following morning. 

Upon leaving the hall, Lily and Remus went one way and James and Sirius went the other, with the latter’s arm strung across the shoulders of the former. Once they arrived in front of James’s door, Sirius followed inside without invitation. “Remus hates me,” he promptly announced, and flung himself on top of James’s half-made bed.

“What?” James asked. “No he doesn’t. Where is this coming from?”

Having been away from James’s sincerity over the last two months, Sirius felt his throat begin to constrict. Shaking it off, Sirius turned onto his back. “No he doesn’t,” he echoed. “I don’t know, I just feel like I keep saying the wrong thing.”

“Well,” James said, slowly. He took off his sweater before laying down next to Sirius. “You probably shouldn’t mention his scars. But I don’t see how that leads to you _always_ saying the wrong thing.”

Sirius sighed. “I didn’t mean it in a negative way, like, at all. If anything, they make him look tough.”

James nodded, and began clicking a fingernail along the steel links of Sirius’s watch. “He’s probably pretty conscious of them,” James said. “But that doesn’t mean he wants to be reminded of them. Or, maybe he knows you didn’t mean to offend him, but he just prefers if they aren’t mentioned at all.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed. He dragged his free hand over his face. “I don’t know. Everything seems new, but it shouldn’t? Like, I shouldn’t have only recently learned not to talk about money in front of other people. Or their physical appearance, I guess. But I have.”

“Hey,” James interrupted. “You’re a good person, you know that, right? I’m proud of you, and I’m happy that you’re my best friend.”

At this, Sirius’s throat constricted enough to stop him from responding, and he allowed James to pull him into a side hug on the bed. “Thank you,” he eventually said. After another brief pause, Sirius decided to open the floodgates. “Lily Evans?” he asked with a grin.

James immediately smiled, and laid his head back against the bed all the way. “Lily Evans,” he repeated, bringing his hands up to rest beneath his head. “I think it’s going well. She talks to me more now.”

Sirius thought about mentioning Lily’s admission—of her having adopted Snape’s negative thoughts about the both of them, and only beginning to question some of his advice after hearing more-blatant homophobia. He decided not to. James was happy with his progress with Lily right now, and there was no need to disturb it. If anything, he realized, he may inspire James to profess his dislike of Snape to Lily herself, despite her having clearly been his friend. They would spend the next day together in Hogsmeade, and that should be enough for now. Instead, Sirius made another mental note to start planning some good pranks against the Potion Master in retaliation. 

“That’s great, mate,” Sirius said. “I’ll see if I can get you some alone time with her tomorrow.”

James laughed. “Thanks. You sure you don’t have any ulterior motives, there, though?”

“What?” Sirius paled. “No.”

“Sirius and Lupin, sitting in a tree,” James singsonged. “K-I-S-”

“James, shut the fuck up,”

“Okay,” James said loftily. “You did seem rather concerned with his opinion of you, though.”

“Hey,” Sirius complained. “That’s not fair. I’m allowed to be melodramatic about anyone’s opinion of me, not only the people I’m interested in.”

“Yeah?” James egged him on.

“Yeah. My opinions of Remus have nothing to do with his deep lilting voice or his insanely strong nonverbal magic. And I don’t even find his cardigans endearing.”

“Ha!” James cackled. “I knew it. I can always tell, with you.”

“No you can’t,” Sirius claimed, knowing he could.

“Name one I didn’t know about.”

“Fifth year,” Sirius immediately said. “I had a crush on Pete for two weeks.”

“No!” James called out, scandalized.

Sirius laughed. “You’re right, I didn’t. And yes, you can always tell. Congratulations.”

James smiled. “So. Deep voices, huh?”

Sirius snorted. “Maybe.”

“That’s why you wouldn’t have had a crush on Pete. Much too mousy. But in a cute way, of course.”

“Good old Pete,” Sirius muttered. “Okay, I’m really tired all of the sudden. Can I sleep here?”

“No.”

“I thought I was your best friend,” Sirius complained.

“Get out of my bed,” James said through a laugh. “You literally live, like, ten meters away.”

“You wound me,” Sirius said as he stood up, regretfully, from the bed. “If I should be mortally maimed in the hallways, by a particularly startled student, perhaps, or maybe even Snivellus himself, then you will be sorry.” He took a few steps towards the bedroom door before turning back to find James looking at him with an amused face. “If I am unable to defend myself properly, due to my state of sleep deprivation, and I die in battle, unaided by my brother, you’ll remember this moment. You’ll remember the time you turned me away from your warm bed. Me, your brother, your own flesh and blood.” Sirius was now in front of the door to the hallway. “And you’ll miss me.”

“Shut up, you tosser,” James called back, through a laugh. “You kick in your sleep.”

“Fine,” Sirius said, finally serious again. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, good night, Jamie.” 

“Good night, Pads,” James repeated.


	4. Chocolate (and Whiskey)

Sirius happily donned his leather jacket and boots, what with it being a non school day and all. He had worn a similar ensemble on his unplanned first day on the job, only three days prior, but today still felt special.

Today also felt special because he was honestly excited. It had been a while, Sirius realized, as he brushed his teeth in the bathroom, since he had genuinely felt excited for the day. Being at Hogwarts for the past few days had allowed him to see how different his life had been recently. He knew he had been in a bit of a funk, but he hadn’t known what he was supposed to do about fixing it. It wasn’t something he wanted to talk about, and even James didn’t know the depth of it. Maybe McGonagall had been right when she said he would find something here.

Just being with James again was enough of a reward, but he also felt a strong pull towards a few other anchors at Hogwarts school. Talking with Lily Evans—sans the first instance of mistakenly-received flirtation—had reminded him that he didn’t really speak to anyone his own age anymore. Grinding on them at clubs in the early hours of the morning didn’t really count as speaking. And of course, there was just something about Remus Lupin. Sirius didn’t know what his secret was, but he knew there were layers to the other man. No one can be born that confident, strong, and simultaneously shy. Sirius didn’t even know the other man’s sexuality, or even relationship status, but even if he didn’t love the deep, lightly-accented voice, he would still want to know what made Remus Lupin tick. And he did love the voice.

It was another casual reminder—they felt like little needles now, persistent and irksome—of how wrong his life had seemed before he crossed the Hogwarts wards and didn’t leave. Having a romantic interest in someone had seemed beyond him. There was the cat-and-mouse of day-to-day, or rather night-to-night, pursuits, but in Sirius’s life there hadn’t been much of anything more than just that. But again, maybe that wasn’t what this pull towards Remus was. Maybe it was just the mysteriousness of the man Sirius didn’t know, but would maybe like to become.

In any case, he was out for a day spent among friends and coworkers, new and old. He made a mental note to either write his thoughts down later and burn them, or stop reading the more romantic poems before bed. Sirius—in all of his thoughts and plans on bettering himself and whatnot—had no intentions of becoming a sap.

The moon was still visible as he peeked through an arrow loop in the castle wall. Above the courtyard, and slowly fading in the early morning sky, was a waxing gibbous. Sirius knew it was waxing because he had retained the most basic of astronomical facts, burned into his memory permanently, ever since Peter failed their first astronomy exam in third year. In response, James had coerced Sirius into helping Peter study until he was neither panicked nor able to carry a conversation until the retake had been completed—perfect score and all.

Sirius quickly grew tired of looking at the moon and decided to _Alohamora_ James’s door instead. As he drew his wand, the door opened, and James emerged. 

“Nice hair,” Sirius commented.

“I combed it,” James defended. “Nice pull outfit.”

“I wear this by default, shut up.”

“Exactly.”

Sirius laughed, and reached up to tousle the small patch of James’s hair that had been successfully tamed. 

“Hey, quit it!” James protested.

Only spurred on further, Sirius wrestled his way behind James, reaching for the wand he knew would be in his back pocket. James began swatting at him, but suddenly froze. In response, Sirius stopped his aggressions, but removed James’s wand all the same.

“Hello, boys.” An extremely unimpressed-sounding voice came from only a few meters away. 

Straightening up, Sirius adjusted his jacket a bit before raising his chin slightly to match. “Good morning, Minerva. Fancy a cup of tea? Professor Potter and I were just on our way.”

James flicked him, but Sirius grinned as McGonagall merely rolled her eyes. “Will you be causing trouble in Hogsmeade, then? I know James is going, and I can only assume you will be joining him.”

“Yeah,” Sirius answered, as he and James fell into step with their former professor. “How’d you know James was going today?”

The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. “He and I usually have tea on Saturday afternoons, but this one was rescheduled.”

James blushed ever-so-slightly, but Sirius could read his face even if the brown of his skin masked the majority of the pink. “What?” Sirius sputtered. “You have a weekly date with Minnie and you didn’t tell me? Or _invite me_? I’ll never recover, this is too crushing,” Sirius declared. 

McGonagall rolled her eyes at the display, and James looped an arm across Sirius’s shoulders. “I reckon you’ll survive. Or perhaps you’ll have to be revived by a certain deep voice.”

“Shut up.” Sirius warned him with wide eyes. After a quick glance past James, Sirius saw Minerva stifling a laugh with her hand. “No!” he cried. “You _told_ her? I can’t believe you.”

James continued to laugh. “I didn’t, but I think you just did.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Black, I trust you to keep things professional,” Minerva stated soberly.

“And unreciprocated,” James whispered. 

“I’ll kill you,” Sirius whispered back.

“And I,” Minerva stated at a normal speaking volume, “have the hearing of a cat.” She laughed at their immediate silence, then continued. “If unreciprocated is the term to be used, I think Professor Potter may find himself to be the pot calling the kettle black. Or perhaps the Potter calling the Black black. In any case, good luck in Hogsmeade today, boys.”

Sirius and James, starstruck and silenced, watched with wide eyes as Minerva left them at the entrance of the Great Hall and made her way towards a waiting Pomona Sprout at the courtyard. “She’s so cool,” James eventually said.

“I missed her,” Sirius stated. “Okay. Breakfast.”

“Okay,” James echoed.

The pair made their way through the Great Hall towards the staff table. There were noticeably fewer students present, many likely taking advantage of a day off by sleeping in, Sirius reasoned. Lupin and Evans sat at the table already. As Sirius drew nearer––having abandoned James to his conversation with a Quidditch-playing Hufflepuff––he realized that they were whispering. Lupin’s brow was furrowed, and Lily looked to be trying to match his discretion. Feeling slightly out-of-place, Sirius scuffed his boots a bit before walking closer. The sound immediately drew Remus’s eyes up, and his face turned blank for a nanosecond, before it formed a casual smile. 

“Good morning, Professors,” Sirius greeted.

“Morning!” Lily called back. “Have a seat, there’s plenty to choose from.” 

She was right, Sirius noted, as he cautiously withdrew the chair next to Remus. Most of the staff was either sleeping in too, or already getting to work. Or in the case of McGonagall and Sprout, apparently doing neither. “So what’s our first stop in Hogsmeade today?” he threw out. There was still a bit of tension it seemed, or perhaps it was just a result of Remus still not saying anything.

“Honestly my favorite part is just walking through it all,” Lily explained. “I asked my fifth years for recommendations yesterday and most of them agreed that if I didn’t stop at Honeydukes I might as well not go. So there’s that,” she offered with a smile.

Sirius nodded. “Honeydukes is hard to pass up. Remus? What’s your favorite item there?”

For a second, Sirius didn’t think Remus would respond, but then he smiled and nodded in thought. Sirius noticed that the other man bit the corner of his cheek as he smiled, as if trying to hold the expression back, and Sirius had to focus intently on pouring himself a mug of tea in order to not announce to the world how adorable it was. “Chocolate,” Remus said. “Any and all. Except white chocolate.” He suddenly grimaced.

“Not real chocolate,” Sirius agreed. Personally, he had no qualms over the varieties of chocolate, and figured if it was named as such it belonged in the family. But, based on Remus’s declaration he was ready to denounce white chocolate publicly and finally.

“Thank you,” Remus agreed, as James joined the table on Lily’s side.

The four of them ate relatively quickly, and soon enough they were on their way out of the hall. A few students waved to one or two of them, and Lily was briefly stopped by a trio for interrogation about the grades on their recent essays. “You’ll get them back on Monday,” she answered. “I promise. And if you really can’t wait, come find me on Sunday night. But don’t tell everyone else, because I don’t want to spend all night handing them out.” They smiled and agreed to her terms.

“Wotcher, Potter,” one bold kid called out. 

“Professor Potter, to you, Erik,” James replied with a grin.

“Captain Johnson, to you,” the kid replied with a laugh. In response, James tousled his hair and kept walking. 

One first year, who really looked like she still belonged in muggle primary school, looked up with wide eyes and said “Hi Sirius.” His heart melted. 

Finally, the four of them regrouped at the entrance of the hall. Evidently, Sirius had chosen the cooler professors to hang out with, which he took as a good sign. If he had to be an authority figure, being a respected rather than a feared one seemed to be best.

A crash sounded from behind them, and all four turned to see a scuffle breaking out amongst two students at the end of the Ravenclaw table. At least one plate was now in shards on the floor, and wands had just been drawn. Sirius looked to his fellow adults, then back at the staff table. Flitwick was rising from his chair, and Pomfrey was shouting at the students. 

Sirius looked back to Remus, James, and Lily again. They all made eye contact before James whispered “Go, go, go!”

Laughing, the four of them ran from the hall, leaped down the steps into the courtyard, and didn’t slow to a walk until they were halfway down the dirt trail winding next to the Forbidden Forest.

“Oh my god,” Lily exclaimed. Sirius looked to Remus and tried to memorize the delight in his face. He suddenly looked younger and freer. “I feel so bad,” Lily continued, still laughing. “I mean, I honestly wouldn’t have been much use, I can’t even disarm anyone, but—”

“Flitwick’s got it,” James assured. “Plus he’s Head of House, so the discipline and all that was going to him anyway.”

Remus suddenly giggled a little bit, and Sirius’s heart stopped. “I never would have done that,” he said. “I can’t believe I just did that.”

“At least Minnie wasn’t there,” James reasoned. “And if she was, we could have blamed Sirius.”

Sirius’s expression of shock and betrayal was lost on James, who had eyes only for Lily. 

“Don’t worry, Sirius,” Remus stated conspiratorially. “We would have thrown under the bus the person who said ‘go, go, go.’” 

In response, Sirius just grinned.

Once they arrived, they spent a bit of time walking around, with Sirius and James both trying to separate into groups of two, and Remus and Lily both either not noticing or resisting, since they kept thinking of something to say to the other once they were more than a few paces away. Surprisingly, Sirius didn’t even mind. They eventually ended up wandering towards the bright aisles of Honeydukes, seeking both warmth and sugar.

When Remus made a beeline for the chocolate, leaving Lily wide-eyed at the front of the store, Sirius followed. “Watch out, Remus,” Sirius said, standing just a bit too close. He flitted his eyes towards a display of white chocolate. “There’s an imposter among us.”

Remus exhaled a huff of amusement. “Thanks for warning me.” After a long moment of deliberation, Remus selected one plastic-wrapped shard of dark chocolate and turned towards the rest of the store. “Is that all?” Sirius asked.

In response, Remus held it up, blocking half of his face. “It’s pretty big,” he reasoned.

Consciously shaking off an impromptu sex joke, Sirius nodded. “Let me buy it for you,” he suddenly added. “In thanks for working with me, and showing me the ropes and all that.” 

“Oh, no.” Remus frowned. “That’s nice of you, but—”

Sirius interrupted him by swiping it out of his hands. “Don’t worry about it.”

After a beat, Remus nodded stiffly. “Okay. Thanks.”

Sirius smiled and turned towards the rest of the store. Still haunted by James’s earlier declaration of eating healthy, Sirius only chose a few pounds of sweets for himself. After paying, he cast a quick anti-melting charm on the chocolate, and slipped it into the breast pocket of his leather jacket.

Lily approached the counter with one of each unusual type of candy. James ended up paying for her, but it was with much less grace than Sirius had when paying for Remus.

Later, in the Three Broomsticks, James asked Lily if she had plans for tomorrow.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she complained, taking another sip of her butterbeer. “I’ll be grading essays. All day.”

“Me too,” Remus answered, from Sirius’s side of the table booth. 

“I can help?” Sirius offered. James made a surprised face at him, so Sirius kicked him under the table.

“Okay,” Remus appraised. “I can give you a stack of essays when we get back to the castle?”

“Sounds good,” Sirius replied. “Stop looking at me like that,” he added to James. “I can be helpful.”

James laughed. “I believe you,” he said loftily, then arranged his face into a more serious expression. “It’s good to have you here.”

Sirius nodded, feeling slightly self-conscious. “It’s good to be here.”

Thankfully, Lily pulled them out of the moment. “How long have you two been friends?” she asked.

“We met at age eleven,” James answered, proud. “Both sorted into Gryffindor.”

Sirius smiled at him for a beat, before shifting to look at Lily and Remus in turn. “What house do you two reckon you would have been in?” 

Lily _hmm-ed_ for a moment. “Severus said I would have been in Slytherin, but I really don’t know.” Sirius shook his head minutely at James, warning him off discussing his feud with Snape. “Remus?” Lily asked. “What about you?”

Remus nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I was homeschooled, but when I took the job I met the sorting hat in Dumbledore’s office.”

“Is that where he keeps it?” James jumped in. “Does it, like, sleep all year or something?”

Remus huffed a laugh at the interruption. “It talks?” he offered. “I thought I would be Ravenclaw, from talking with the students, but the hat told me I was a pure Gryffindor, whatever that must mean about me.”

“We could have been roommates,” Sirius mumbled. He immediately felt a sharp blow to his right shin, and he looked up to glare at James.

“Anyway,” James said, “even though tomorrow is busy we should all meet at dinner. I like this group. I wish we had gotten to know each other earlier in the school year,” he added, looking to Lily and Remus. Ever the mother hen of the group, Sirius thought with a smile. 

Sirius also joined James in his appreciation of the group. Even if they were just friends, they already had a good balance of give and take. And in Sirius’s opinion, at least, Remus looked even better when he was influenced by James and his silliness. 

“Definitely,” Lily answered, interrupting Sirius’s thoughts. “I like you guys, and it’ll give me a target to finish the grading by.” James all but swooned at the response, and Sirius kicked him for it, just because he could.

“At the risk of fleeing from a group of fighting students once more, I’ll accept the invitation,” Remus stated slowly, the hint of a smile playing about his lips. Sirius noticed that his top lip had a hint of a white scar running into it. He couldn’t be sure from the distance, but he thought the plump bottom lip looked unmarked. Sirius noticed Remus looking at him a second before he felt the kick to his leg and turned to retaliate. James yelped a bit, probably higher pitched than he would have tried for in front of Lily.

“You guys are so ridiculous.” Lily laughed.

Grinning, Sirius withdrew his wand from his hair. James matched him quickly. 

Now frowning, Lily shifted further away from James. “I hope you have good aim, Sirius.”

Sirius felt a burst of magic to his left, and looked over to find a thick wall of a shield bisecting the table, with Lily and Remus on one side, and him and James on the other. The charm was powerful enough to actually push Sirius a bit further to his side of the booth, and he tried to look to see if Lupin had cast it silently _and_ without his wand, or just silently. James took advantage of his distraction by disarming him.

Remus removed the shield and laughed. “Good duel, guys. Really impressive.” 

Lily looked to Remus with wide eyes. “Can you teach me that shield charm?”

James’s jaw dropped. “I could teach—” Sirius interrupted him with another kick, and didn’t bother holding back his laughter as Remus agreed.

When the group of four finally left the Three Broomsticks, the sun was beginning to set. The chill of the October air enveloped them, and Sirius could see his breath.

“Lily, do you know how to cast a warming charm?” James asked.

“Oh! Good idea,” she replied. “I think I remember it.” She pulled her wand out of her bag.

“You can try it on me first, if you’d like,” James offered. 

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “ _Glacius_.”

James immediately shuddered, and Sirius and Remus burst into laughter. “Close, really close,” James offered weakly. “That’s the cooling spell equivalent though.”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Lily cried, but Sirius noticed she was biting her cheek to prevent a smile. 

From his side, Sirius heard a faint snap, and suddenly felt himself wrapped in a cocoon of warmth. He felt as if he was sitting in a pool of sunlight on a hot day, and he couldn’t help the small sigh he released before thanking Remus. The man merely nodded, but Sirius noticed the corner of his lips turning up as he began to walk ahead on the trail that would take them up to the castle.

Once they arrived at the castle’s entrance, Sirius began to droop, starting to feel all of the time he had spent on his feet that day. To his side, Lupin appeared to be perfectly awake and contently wrapped in his ridiculously-sized but eventually-enviable scarf.

“Did you still want to pick up some of those essays?” Remus asked.

Sirius yawned before nodding. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Great. They’re in my quarters, not my office; I took them there last night.”

The thought of going to Remus’s room now, instead of the classroom like he had assumed, helped wake him back up again. Behind them, Sirius dully realized James was offering an old copy of _The Tales of Beadle the Bard_ to Lily, who was surprisingly interested. The pairs said their goodbyes and split, with Remus and Sirius going up two flights of stairs and James and Lily going up one.

“All right,” Remus said. “Here we are.”

Sirius watched as Remus stopped in front of an otherwise insignificant door and pushed. 

“Come in.”

Stepping inside, Sirius noted that Remus’s quarters were similar in layout to his own and to James’s, but the living room equivalent was larger. Past the couch and coffee table, and past the worn leather armchair, the corner of the room glowed faintly.

“It’s magicked,” Remus explained, noticing him staring. “To be a bit larger. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Dumbledore,” he added with the hint of a proud smirk.

“Of course not,” Sirius said aloud, and added in his head _you did this by yourself?_ Sirius realized he was still just standing in the entryway of the room, and finally moved enough to close the door behind him. 

“I’ll be right back,” Remus said before slipping away, likely into his bedroom. He emerged a moment later with a daunting stack of parchment. “All right,” he said again. “I’ve graded lots of these before, so how about I give you a third? It’ll get faster pretty quickly, don’t worry if the first ones take a while.”

_I can do more than just a third,_ Sirius thought indignantly, before reading the title of the top essay. “Oh,” he said quietly. “I actually haven’t seen these specific ones before. But I still can!” he added reassuringly. Suddenly Sirius felt compelled to prove himself to Remus, or at least maintain whatever conversation it was they were having until he was inevitably kicked out or deemed unworthy. 

“Oh,” Remus said slowly. “Well. I can make a rubric for you to refer to, and we could even grade the first few together? Does that sound viable to you?”

“Yes!” Sirius agreed, then immediately made a note to tone down the enthusiasm. If James were here, he knew his shins would have just been kicked.

“All right.” Remus gave the smallest huff of amusement before sitting on the couch and placing the stack of parchment on the coffee table in front of him.

Sirius joined him on the couch, sitting just a bit closer than he would if he didn’t have the excuse of needing to see the same paper that Remus was marking. 

“What I usually start with is covering their name with a book or paperweight,” he accented the statement by pulling a thick bound textbook onto the corner of the parchment. “And then I read through it pretty quickly, looking for specific responses to the prompt,” he circled the end of one sentence and added a checkmark. “The appropriate answers will be on the rubric I give you. And once it is complete,” Sirius realized that Remus had already added five checkmarks to the parchment, and was now sliding the textbook off, “you tally their total points out of five next to their name.”

“Seems pretty straightforward,” Sirius nodded. 

“It is,” Remus agreed. “Here, since you probably don’t know the students by name yet anyway, I’ll keep the textbook, but you can start with a few here, and we can make sure we’re on the same page with grading.” Sirius nodded as he was presented with a small fraction of the pile, and Remus stood from the couch. “I’ll grab a copy of the prompt I gave so I can write up that rubric for you pretty quickly,” Remus explained, and disappeared from the room again.

In his absentia, Sirius took another look about the room. It was cozy, in a way that his own was not. The fireplace had roared to life once Remus first stepped inside; whether by permanent charm or by silent magic, Sirius didn’t know, but longed to. The floor was covered in not one but three separate rugs, all very thick and worn. 

Realizing he needed to make some sort of progress before Remus returned, Sirius picked up a quill and marked a blank _out of five_ at the top of his first paper. He looked to the side to see if he could follow Remus’s grading of the other essay, in case this student had said the same things. Instead, he became distracted, as his eyes flitted up to the textbook still partially atop the very corner of the paper. Picking it up and flipping it over, Sirius read the title. _NEWT-Level Potions_. 

“Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts intersect, as I said before,” a deep lilting voice came from behind him. His tone was slightly cold.

Sirius tensed up momentarily before turning. “Sorry, I—” he said reflexively, without knowing what he should be apologizing for. Somehow Sirius suddenly felt like an intruder in Remus’s space, and desperately wished to be back in the classroom.

“It’s okay,” Remus said with a huff of a laugh. “I think the coffee table is fair game; it’s not as if you’d been rifling through my bedroom.”

For some reason, Sirius felt his cheeks warm ever-so-slightly at that, and turned away to the parchment in front of him once more. 

“In any case, I’ve got the prompt.” Remus sat beside him once more, and Sirius was pleased to notice that he didn’t capitalize on now being the second to sit to increase their distance. “And I brought a bit of whiskey.” 

Sirius grinned. 

“If that’s something you’d like,” Remus added.

“Whiskey and essays sound wonderful.” Sirius met Remus’s eyes. 

“Great.” Remus waved a hand—a wandless hand—and two glasses floated towards them. He poured about one drink’s worth in each, and slid one towards Sirius. 

“Thanks.” Sirius lifted it to clink their glasses together, and couldn’t hold back the wink he accompanied it with. Remus rolled his eyes but smiled all the same, and Sirius felt warmer from that alone than from the imminent first sip of alcohol. “Oh! Before I forget,” Sirius reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the dark chocolate from earlier. “I’ve had this with me all day. I didn’t let it melt, don’t worry,” he added sheepishly.

“Thank you.” Remus took the chocolate and smiled again. 

“You’re welcome,” Sirius returned. He felt frozen, looking into twin pools of amber.

After a beat of silence, Remus cleared his throat, and Sirius abruptly turned back to the essay in front of him. He took a drink of whiskey to pass the time, and nodded to himself in approval.

A huff of amusement from his side told him Remus noticed the expression, and Sirius couldn’t help but smile. “All right, here we are.” Remus slid a bit of parchment his way, and Sirius accepted it. “Do you want to try a few now, and then let me know if you have any questions?”

“Yeah, perfect,” Sirius said, reading the rubric. “Thanks,” he added.

They soon fell into an easy rhythm. Sirius quickly accelerated through grading, going from reading all of a student’s answer to eventually skimming for just specific key words or phrases. Only a few questions were asked of Remus, and for that Sirius felt proud (and therefore slightly embarrassed). 

“Well, I’d say you have the hang of it,” a low voice broke through the silence.

“Great, I can get through the rest tomorrow,” Sirius assured. He suddenly didn’t know what to do. Remus may want him to leave, or to offer to stay and finish more essays now, or perhaps offer to grade all of the essays instead of sharing them? Sirius then noticed Remus’s empty glass, and turned back to his own quarter-full one.

Sirius reached for it tentatively, and Remus gave a tiny laugh. Sirius drew his brows in, but turned to see Remus suddenly brandishing the bottle of whiskey again. He topped off his own, then turned to Sirius with bright eyes. “Fancy a second?”

“Sure. Cheers.” Sirius nodded, as Remus poured. 

“I talked to Dumbledore, by the way,” Remus offered.

“Oh?”

“He’s interested in the dueling club. Said he would talk to the governors soon, but that we could get started on preparations now. Just among staff, that is.”

Sirius’s eyebrows rose. “Excellent. That’s good news, then.”

The corner of Remus’s mouth quirked up. “It is. I was thinking of asking James and Lily if they were interested in joining us, but wanted to talk to you first.”

“Me?”

Remus laughed again, and in the firelight Sirius watched the scar on his lip disappear and then appear again as his head tilted back. “You, Sirius,” he answered, and wow, Sirius loved hearing his name in Remus’s voice. “The other adult working with Defense Against the Dark Arts? The one who had the original idea?”

Sirius blushed at the praise, and turned to face the fire once more. “Cheers, I’d love to work with them. Although I think James would love to work with her more,” he offered wryly.

“It’s quite obvious,” Remus mused, flicking his eyes to Sirius once before landing back on his own glass. “What are his chances?”

“I think they’d be higher if Snape wasn’t here,” Sirius said candidly. Frowning, he drained his glass, and Remus gestured to the bottle standing on the table between them.

“Why don’t you like him?” Remus ventured. The man was now picking at a thread on the front of his sweater, and Sirius turned away again, having found the view of his collarbone too overwhelming. 

Sirius changed his reflexive answer of _he’s a git_ at the last moment. “We were in the same year at school together. Me, James, and him.” He picked up the flask and poured himself another glass—just shy of a full drink. Remus’s glass was empty, so he poured him one too. “We never got along.”

“And that has carried into your adult lives?” Remus questioned. He lifted his glass and raised it slightly in thanks before taking a sip.

Sirius frowned. Before, he would have said yes, without a doubt. But thinking about his own path to adulthood, and James’s theoretical coexistence with Snape before now, he challenged his impulses. “I think James must have been polite with him,” he said slowly. “This year, I mean. Before I showed up. In the past, our feuds were mostly between Sniv—” he coughed slightly, thinking about maturity for a moment before continuing—“between Severus and myself. James just got involved because he wanted to protect me.”

Remus nodded. “And why did you and Severus have a problem inherently?”

Sirius stilled, not expecting the now-obvious follow-up question. “My brother,” he whispered. 

“Your brother?” Remus repeated.

“I’m sorry, can we please not talk about this, I, I don’t—” Sirius stopped. Whether it was the alcohol or the late hour, he felt his eyes begin to sting at thinking of Regulus, and especially of Regulus as a young Hogwarts student.

“Yes, of course,” Remus said, turning away.

After swallowing, Sirius made to speak again. “Although.” He cleared his throat and tried again. He was now fully feeling the two and a half glasses of whiskey he had drank. “Although, this time seems different. One of the reasons I’ve a problem with Snape is that he’s been poisoning Lily against James. And myself, too, apparently.”

Remus nodded slowly. “I see. If it’s any consolation, it seems like Lily had a good time today.”

Sirius dully nodded at the words, and tucked his feet up under him on the couch. When he nodded he felt the room move just slightly, and he did it again just to watch. “He told her I’m—” he thought again of Regulus, and his mother, and the events leading up to the last moment he saw her. He thought of Snape’s role in that. 

From his side, Sirius heard Remus make a pained noise. “Sirius, you don’t have to—”

“He told her I’m gay.” Snape told Walburga; Snape told Lily. “But didn’t use that word,” he laughed slightly, without humor. 

Sirius watched Remus bristle. He froze on the couch, before moving only to straighten his back, looking as uncomfortable as Sirius now felt.

Sirius sighed, and moved away from Remus. “Sorry. I didn’t, um—” he didn’t know what he didn’t mean to do, but watching Remus turn away from him at the moment he mentioned his sexuality was too painful to not speak up and divert from. It was sobering. “Sorry. It won’t change our working relationship,” he said monotonously, fighting to get the words out when all he wanted to do was leave.

“Woah, hey, it’s okay,” Remus assured, unfreezing. “Sirius, that’s—that’s completely fine with me, I’m just—” he took a breath—“surprised.”

“I don’t exactly hide it.” Sirius tried to say through a self-conscious laugh.

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Remus turned towards him. “I kind of thought, or hope—I mean, it’s great, you’re, you know, a role model for some of the students, and, yes. I didn’t know Severus was… homophobic.”

The whiskey was fully in control again, and Sirius couldn’t help but giggle slightly as he slid his now-empty glass further away from him. He heard Remus’s words, loving how the whiskey helped bring out the Welsh accent a bit more, but really only focused on the last part. “He’s a bastard,” Sirius declared with a grin.

Remus’s eyes lit up as he focused on Sirius. Either Remus was swaying or Sirius was, but Sirius knew he was north of tipsy and loving the view. Remus laughed and agreed. “He’s a bastard!” Remus almost shouted, drawing more laughter out of Sirius.

Sirius all-but-cackled, before leaning in for a sudden whisper. “Cheers,” Sirius declared quietly, conspiratorially. He raised an empty hand, miming holding a cup, and waited for Remus to copy him. “To the bastard.”

Remus shook his head fondly, and laughed heartily. Sirius loved the sound. “Drink this,” Remus suddenly prompted him, pressing his old glass into his hand.

“Remus, I don’t know if you can tell, but if I have any more whiskey I’m going to start telling secrets, and I very much prefer to keep them in _my_ head and not in _your_ head.”

“It’s water.” Remus laughed.

“Oh,” Sirius said, looking at it. “Cheers.” By the time he had finished the glass, a thick blanket had been thrown over him, and Remus was pointing his wand at the fireplace.

The light in the room dimmed slightly, and Sirius yawned on reflex. “Hey,” Sirius spoke up. “Why aren’t you knackered? We drank the same amount. Although your accent _is_ more pronounced now.” _I like it,_ he added in his mind.

“Keeping tabs on me, Mr. Black?” Remus asked, and Sirius couldn’t help but bite his lip as he stared at him. “I just have a high tolerance, I suppose.”

Sirius tried to think of something witty to say to that, but the moment seemed to stretch too long, and suddenly he was yawning again, instead of impressing Remus with a wry comment.

“Goodnight Sirius,” Remus said, and stood up from the couch.

“Goodnight Remus.” Sirius fell asleep shortly after, thinking of a satisfying day amongst friends, a deep lilting voice, and the way that Remus’s face beamed after running away from the Great Hall after breakfast.


	5. The anti-sexist walk of purely self-assigned objectification

Waking up on Sunday morning was easy—mainly because of how uncomfortable it had been to lay down with a slightly twisted back and minutely chilled feet on a couch for the entire night. By the time his eyes opened, taking in the early morning light through Remus’s exterior window, the headache roused the rest of his sleepiness away.

Sirius looked to the side and found a full glass of water and a vial of what looked mercifully reminiscent of hangover potion. Remus must have placed the two on the coffee table at some point either in the night or morning, and Sirius quickly grabbed both. 

After taking the potion and shaking his head a bit, Sirius was ready to eat a proper breakfast. He removed the blanket and sat up. Sleeping in last night’s jeans was not an event he was proud of, even though it had occurred several times in the months between James leaving for Hogwarts and Sirius following behind like a bored dog. However, sleeping in last night’s jeans, while in the living space of Remus Lupin’s quarters, was an event he was begrudgingly glad of. He may have come out to Remus last night, and had a weirdly amusing bashing session of Snape, but at least he had kept himself clothed.

Sirius listened for a moment and heard the sound of running water. Deciding that he could thank Remus for his hospitality at breakfast—a decidedly more neutral location, no matter how intrigued he was by the thought of a showering or only towel-clad Remus Lupin—Sirius stood. He grabbed his stack of essays, ran fingers through his bed head, and laughed on reflex. He was about to do the walk of shame on a Sunday morning in Hogwarts castle. They didn’t sleep together, that much was obvious, but the appearance was still the same. Praying no students were afoot, Sirius left the room.

The hallway was quiet, and after a few paces Sirius tilted his head back into the air in a (fond) impersonation of McGonagall. The first person he ran into was Albus Dumbledore. 

“Good morning, Sirius,” the man said cheerily.

“Morning sir,” Sirius returned. Had he been feeling less on-the-spot, he might have called him Albus again.

“You’re up early!” Dumbledore said. “Getting to work already?”

Sirius lifted his essays a bit and nodded. “Grading papers today. I picked them up from Professor Lupin. Yes.”

Dumbledore smiled and nodded. He started to walk past Sirius, and Sirius figured the conversation was now over, and did the same.

“Oh, Sirius, my boy,” he suddenly started.

Sirius stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“You are aware that the house elves will do your laundry? You are a member of the staff, after all.”

Sirius’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“I couldn’t help but notice, you seem to be wearing last night’s clothes.” A twinkle had appeared in Dumbledore’s eyes, and Sirius couldn’t do anything else but stare, open-mouthed.

He watched as the headmaster walked away, humming to himself. Shaking off the absurdity and unable to help but laugh at himself a bit, Sirius turned once more for his own room, praying he wouldn’t meet anyone else.

While waiting for a staircase to move, Sirius turned to look at all of the portraits hanging on the walls. Many of the inhabitants were asleep, though some were getting started with their days—either watching Sirius or each other. The staircase clicked into place, and Sirius started his descent. He looked down the stairs and immediately locked eyes with someone.

She was also wearing last night’s clothes, and also had bed hair. She clutched a battered-looking paperback instead of essays, but otherwise, Lily Evans was a perfect copy of Sirius this morning. “ _Not_ what it looks like,” she said as they passed each other on the stair—him going down and her going up.

Sirius laughed. “Same,” he assured. “But you have to own it anyway. Dumbledore saw me,” he added. 

Her eyes widened in response, and Sirius laughed again.

“You’re doing the walk of shame,” he whispered.

“No!” she protested. “Shut up.”

Noticing the way she bit her cheek to hold back her amusement, Sirius continued his ribbing. As he got to the bottom of the case, he looked back up at her. “Strut, Evans, strut!” he called out.

“I’ll kill you!” she stage-whispered, before disappearing from view down a corridor. 

In happy approval of Lily’s tenacity and humor, and excited for James, Sirius quickly made his way back to his own room, thankfully encountering no more spectators. 

After he shut his door, he leaned back against it. He knew his smile was dopey, but with no one to bear witness, he didn’t bother to reduce it. Eventually, he tossed the essays on his own couch, and stripped his clothes off on his way to the shower.

***

The rest of the day passed by easily enough. Sirius ate breakfast with James and Lily, with the latter excusing herself to attend to her full day of grading soon after Sirius’s first cup of tea. Sirius lingered only a few moments in the Great Hall, wondering where Remus was, before finally allowing James to drag him back to his room. They had things to discuss, after all, James said.

Once seated in James’s living space, Sirius decided to toy with his friend as best he could. If nothing else, it was for all of the blows his shins had been subjected to the previous day.

“Sorry James, but I need to get to my grading. Can you give me the abridged version now, and maybe tell me the rest over dinner?”

James sputtered. “What?” he finally settled on. “Obviously we can’t talk about it over dinner! Lily will be there!”

Sirius half-succeeded at hiding his cackle, and James immediately recognized it. 

“Oh, okay. Plonker. Maybe I won’t tell you.”

Sirius grinned. “Maybe you don’t have to. Lily and I walked past each other this morning, both doing the walk of shame.”

“What? You knew? Only, we didn’t sleep together; we just talked. Pads, she’s _so_ cool. I think she’s the one. We talked about how it’s been for her to be new to magic, and me growing up completely outside of the Muggle world, and her relationship with her family, and I told her about being a student here, and—”

“Okay, woah,” Sirius interrupted. “So she’s the one? Like, _the_ one. But you didn’t sleep together? Did anything romantic happen at all?”

James narrowed his eyes at him. “You can know someone’s right for you without sleeping with them first. And we hugged, for your information.”

Sirius let out a burst of laughter, and quickly had to go into defense mode against James’s hands swatting at him. In all fairness, Sirius thought, as he finally pinned James’s arms against the couch, a hug was something more than what he had last night with Remus.

“Okay, so what happened to you last night? You did the walk of shame?” James asked. “Also, to be fair, you said I had to be more respectful about liking Lily and now you’re using a term that is, frankly, a little sexist.” James tilted his head a bit and grimaced.

Sirius’s jaw dropped. “I can say it if I’m talking about myself though,” he defended.

“Then don’t say it about Lily,” James challenged.

“Fine. Last night I fell asleep on Remus’s couch after we graded essays and talked _over whiskey_. Also, that man can drink anyone under the table, so watch out.”

“Pads, you have such a low tolerance. You probably think my mom could drink you under the table.”

“She could!”

“So what did you talk about? Is he, like, _you know?”_ James flopped his wrist limply and looked at Sirius expectantly. Immitating people who want to be supportive but avoid using the words gay or queer was a running joke between the two of them.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I told him I am, though.”

James nodded, with wide eyes. “He didn’t like, say it back immediately or something? I mean, I don’t really know how those things work, I suppose.”

“I’ve literally seen you make out with another man before, don’t pretend you’re just straight.”

“I’m a new man. I’m just Lily-sexual.”

“You’re gross.”

“You’re being Lily-sexual-phobic right now.”

“Fuck off.” Sirius laughed, taking the bite from the words.

“So?” James eventually prompted.

“He was really nice, and seemed to be okay with it. We were talking about Snape actually, and I think he was mad to find out that Snape isn’t okay with it.”

“With what? With, like, this?” James flopped his wrist again and Sirius smacked him for it.

“Yeah. Have you noticed he and Snape work together a lot? I don’t think Remus likes him either but I think they have to get along for the sake of a project or something.”

“Okay, first of all, Snape sucks, and the fact that he’s homophobic means he sucks beyond redeption. Like a vacuum from Muggle Studies. Did you know that Lily’s family has one of those? I thought they were just like in museums or something.”

“Focus.”

“Right. Snape sucks but we’re literally all adults and we kind of have to work together. That was my point,” James said. He paused before smiling. “Can I talk about Lily again?”

“No. No, I get what you mean. Obviously Remus can’t be outwardly rude to him or something. But, I don’t know, I just have a weird feeling that they see more of each other than either would like,” Sirius explained. “Does that make sense?” 

“Maybe? Also, just so you know, I’m holding back on a sex joke about the two of them because I’m unarmed right now. But you could ask Lily about it maybe? She works with Snape on Potions stuff, so she may know something.”

Sirius nodded in thought. “That may be a good idea actually. For that, I won’t even attack you for the almost-sex-joke.”

“Thank you,” James stated soberly. “Hey, do you want to fly today?”

Sirius started to nod, then froze and widened his eyes. “Oh Merlin, I need to grade those essays. Like, I need to get started on them maybe thirty minutes ago. Shit.”

“Whipped for Lupin,” James said.

“Sod off.” Sirius stood and walked to the door. James followed. 

“Hey,” James said seriously.

“Yeah?” Sirius stopped, one hand on the still-closed door.

“I’m proud of you. For being here, and making a positive change for yourself. And I’ll always be proud of you, no matter how many homophobic gits there are out there.”

Sirius nodded, feeling his throat tighten. 

“Now grade those essays and come to dinner on time!”

Snapping out of the melancholy, Sirius laughed and pulled his brother in for a hug. During their embrace, Sirius brushed back the hair from James’s forehead and placed a loud and dramatized kiss there.

“Now I’ve gone further with you than Evans has.”

“Fuck off.” James laughed.

“Bye Prongsie, love you lots,” Sirius called as he stepped through the door.

“Bye, idiot. I love you too.”

***

As it turned out, grading the essays was easier than anticipated. Sirius finished with time to spare before dinner, and he spent the remaining hour moving his few possessions around his living space, trying to make it feel more personal. He made a note to ask the elf who knew Alphard’s house elf if he would be willing to retrieve a few of his posters and printed photographs sometime in the future. He would go himself, but he would have to first set up the Floo network to his quarters, and that seemed like more work.

He could also just use James’s, but he also didn’t really want to return to Alphard’s mansion at all. Part of him feared that once there, he wouldn’t come back, and another part of him feared seeing his old life would only make him more ashamed.

Either way, he pushed the couch around a few times, and successfully transfigured an obsolete textbook into a vase of flowers. They looked out of place. 

Later, at dinner, Sirius finally saw Remus again. Sirius watched him walk in from one of the side corridors, and make his way over towards where Sirius sat next to a very talkative James and Lily. They exchanged greetings, and Sirius’s grin faltered as Remus all-but collapsed into his chair. He looked weary, although no less handsome.

“I graded those essays today,” Sirius offered.

“Great, thank you.”

“I can just bring them with me to the classroom tomorrow morning if that’s best?”

“Thanks,” Remus said. He scooped a very small amount of roasted potatoes onto his plate, and lifted his fork in apparent dread. “I’ll put them into the gradebook during lunch tomorrow, then we’ll return them to students in the afternoon.”

“Or,” Sirius started, “I could put them in the gradebook during one of the morning classes that I’m not working with students. And you can still have lunch.” 

Remus nodded, and muttered a soft affirmative. 

“Thanks for your hospitality, by the way,” Sirius continued, still trying to get a read on Remus. He seemed different today. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you earlier, partly because I didn’t want to make the in-school news for my questionable morning appearance.”

At this, Remus finally smiled a bit, and Sirius grinned. “Fair assessment.”

“Remind me later to tell you who I saw in the hall this morning,” Sirius whispered.

Remus’s eyes lit up, and he stabbed a record-high of two potatoes onto his fork. Without the logic to support why, Sirius felt proud.

***

The next day started as normally as he supposed all of his Mondays now would. He tried not to look for Remus’s entrance in the Great Hall during breakfast too conspicuously, but James still ribbed him about it anyway. James frowned when he saw Lily enter with Snape, and Sirius took advantage of the opportunity to elbow him in retaliation.

Lily and Snape stopped at one end of the staff table, and continued to discuss something that appeared to be important. Sirius had no qualms about staring, especially since he remembered the supposed intersection between Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Or perhaps just Lupin. Sirius saw Snape make a shushing gesture to Lily a few times, though he was too far to hear anything they said.

Sirius poked James’s arm. “Remind me to ask her about that thing.”

“About what thing?”

“The Potions thing.”

“The thing that involves Remus?”

“Shush!”

Lily eventually extricated herself from Snape and sat next to James. Sirius only had time for a brief greeting before excusing himself. He needed to grab the graded essays from his room on his way to the classroom this morning, and the fact that Remus must be there only made leaving easier.

On the way, Sirius passed a few ghosts and a few hurrying students, mostly making their way to the Great Hall. When he finally entered his desired hallway, it was empty, save one. “Good morning, Minnie!” Sirius called out.

“Mr. Black,” she nodded curtly. 

He wondered where she came from, either the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom or perhaps the Astronomy tower, but curiosity to find Remus won out, and he entered the classroom without further conversation.

Remus was standing at the chalkboard, writing something in neat block letters. Sirius took advantage of the view for a few seconds, but Remus’s head turned as soon as he had taken his first footstep on the stone floor.

“Good morning, Professor.” Sirius smiled.

“Good morning,” Remus returned. 

Sirius brandished the essays. “I’ve got the goods. What’s the game plan for today?”

Remus had resumed writing on the chalkboard, but he spoke while doing so. “Monday starts with the first year Slytherin and Hufflepuff students. I’ll be giving a pretty basic lecture, and will give them the remaining time to start their reading.”

“Cheers.” Now at the front of the classroom as well, Sirius saw how tired Remus appeared. Clearly his state last night at dinner hadn’t improved with the night. “Should I put the grades in during that time?”

Remus took a deep breath, and Sirius watched his chest puff with it. For all of his staring, it seemed to be the first time Sirius noticed how muscular Remus looked. Or maybe this was the first time he didn’t have on three extra sweaters? As Remus exhaled, it could have been a sigh.

Not knowing what to do, Sirius pointed to Remus’s desk chair in question. Remus frowned at it before sitting.

“If you want to observe the lecture instead, you could try your hand at giving it tomorrow. Tuesday will start with the same class, only with the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws instead. Tomorrow I will be away for a research trip, but will return in time for classes on Wednesday.” Remus looked extremely unhappy with this news.

Sirius nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I can observe the lecture and try to give it tomorrow. Does this happen to be on one of the subjects you asked me to read up on last Friday?”

Remus’s mouth formed an all-but-imperceptible smile. “Yes, I had planned this a bit. The lecture is an introduction to a few creatures, focused mainly on pixies.”

“Sounds good.”

Students entered the classroom shortly after, and Sirius was introduced yet again. By now, most of the students at Hogwarts knew he was a member of the staff, but Sirius was looking forward to Wednesday afternoon, when he would have finally seen each of Lupin’s classes, and could stave off the initial slightly-awkward greetings.

The lecture went by faster than Sirius would have thought. He surprised himself by taking notes—not necessarily on what Remus was saying, but rather the way he was saying it—since he had told Sirius he would be providing detailed lesson plans. As a room full of eleven year-olds buried their heads in their books to read silently—with less protest than Sirius expected—he joined Remus at his desk once more. The man looked positively knackered, as if the half hour he had stood to talk had drained him. Nonetheless, when Sirius joined him, Remus waved a tired hand and Sirius felt the silencing charm cocoon them.

“Nice lecture,” Sirius appraised. “I think I can do that.”

“Great.” Remus yawned.

“Do you need anything?” Sirius couldn’t help but ask. “Maybe some tea?”

He shook his head. “No, the caffeine wouldn’t help. It’s the research trip.”

Sirius took a moment to think before refuting him. “You get tired _before_ the trip?”

Remus, who had been fiddling with a quill, momentarily froze. “Yes. It’s a lot of planning, and, well, preparations.”

“Right,” Sirius agreed. He took the chair to the side of Remus’s desk and sat, determined to dispel the awkwardness that he had somehow created. “What’s our next class?”

***

After watching what Remus had called “an inquiry-based education lesson,” or, more accurately, a surprisingly-engaging conversation between students and their professor, it was time for lunch. Sirius was glad that Remus remained seated during the dialogue; he himself was dangerously close to turning into Euphemia Potter and forcing the man to sit down with a warm bowl of curry in front of him.

“Coming to lunch?” Sirius asked, as the students filed out of the class.

Remus groaned. “I should.” He sounded like he would rather do anything else, but Sirius was reminded of his small dinner last night, and the lack of him at breakfast.

“Then let’s go,” he announced. 

They sat with Lily for the first half of lunch—Remus barely eating—and were only joined by a slightly sweaty and entirely grass and mud covered James at the end. “Kid fell off his broom,” he explained to the shocked trio, as he piled chicken and then rice onto his plate. “I caught him though,” he added through his first mouthful of food.

“Of course you did,” Sirius said, not even having to fake his impressed voice. “You’re a great flier. See, Lily, if you were learning to fly with James you couldn’t be safer.”

For that, Remus shot Sirius a coy look, which Sirius preened at. James didn’t have time to glare at Sirius, since Lily surprisingly seemed to agree. “You may be right. What you did sounds very,” she paused briefly, “admirable, James. Are you not hurt?”

Sirius and Remus immediately locked eyes again, and it was James’s turn to preen. Remus raised his eyebrows at Sirius, and Sirius beamed at the way his face lit up in amusement. No one called him out when he (conspicuously) knocked half of a grilled cheese sandwich onto Remus’s mostly-empty plate while bringing the platter to himself. When Sirius looked up a moment later, after dipping his own grilled cheese into his bowl of tomato soup, however, McGonagall was smiling softly at him.

The afternoon classes went by smoothly, and Sirius reasoned that Mondays weren’t as bad as everyone claimed them to be. Remus seemed more energetic after lunch, but after the final class ended—during which Sirius had insisted on passing out the essays, delegating Remus to his chair and chalkboard—he finally collapsed. He apparently had been rallying all of his effort for the students, and was now in desperate need of a good rest.

“Can I help you back to your quarters?” 

“No, thank you.”

After a beat of silence, Sirius spoke again. “Food? Madam Pomfrey? Anything?”

Remus looked up at him, his face showing minute surprise. It was as if he couldn’t believe Sirius was actually trying to help him, or that he wasn’t accustomed to such offers.

“I can get myself there,” Remus finally spoke, “but if you want to carry my briefcase and these wooden boxes to my room I would appreciate it.”

Eager to help, Sirius levitated the prescribed containers with ease, not stopping to question why Remus wants them, or what he even hopes to accomplish in a research mission while in this state. They ambled back to Remus’s quarters, and Remus said goodbye to him at the door. 

“I’ll see you on Wednesday. Good luck tomorrow. Remember, if something isn’t working well, you can always ask them to do their reading during class. They all know what it is.”

“It’ll be fine,” Sirius assured. “Good luck with your mission.”

Remus paused momentarily. Sirius was reminded once more of the look of surprise at Sirius’s sincerity. “Thank you, Sirius.”

Sirius swallowed. “No problem. Wednesday, then. Goodbye.”


	6. Stodgy Professor (Redux)

The next day, Sirius wore a sweater over his collared shirt. He thought little of it, having spent most of the morning thinking about what he would say to his—and only his, today—students. He’d start with an introduction for the few who didn’t yet know him, briefly state that their dear Professor Lupin was away for today, and then begin to carry out the day’s plan, whether it be lessons or readings or practicum.

At breakfast, he diligently chose the foods that would optimize his teaching. Items with protein and suspected vitamins were selected, while things that seemed very carbohydrate-laden, or had an abundance of sugar, were neglected. He also poured a strong brew of black tea. 

A cackle from halfway across the Great Hall was the first sign that something was wrong. 

Looking up, Sirius found James Potter pointing and laughing in his direction. Sirius glared at him in return, but he was soon pulled away by a Ravenclaw student demanding James’s attention on something likely Quidditch-related.

Sirius turned to his side and found the second sign that something was wrong: McGonagall was all-but smirking at him.

“What?” he demanded, decidedly unnerved.

One cat-like smize later, she answered. “Your style of dress this morning is rather endearing. Good luck with your classes today—I must say, you do look the part.”

“Oh my god, Sirius, you look just like Remus!” a redhead announced, coming up to take the seat by his side. The fourth and final nail in his coffin was Lily Evans pulling at his sweater and announcing to McGonagall, “My god, it’s wool!”

Sirius left the hall soon after.

Now, sitting in Remus’s chair at Remus’s desk, waiting for Remus’s students to arrive, Sirius realized he may indeed look a bit like the stodgy professor. But if that is what it will take to do a good job today, then he will wear the outfit with as much dignity as he can muster up. Because he does want to do a good job today, really. He isn’t quite sure how his life and aspirations changed paths so quickly, but one day shy of a week after his return to Hogwarts found Sirius Black desperately hoping to be at least an adequate teacher.

“Is Professor Lupin on a research trip?” one girl demanded as she walked in. With just those few words spoken with such character, Sirius was reminded of his friend Marlene. The do-it-yourself black bangs certainly helped.

“Yes, he is,” Sirius answered. When the girl took her seat—loudly—she was close enough for Sirius to see the lesbian pride flag pinned to the front of her robes. Marlene McKinnon would indeed be proud of her young doppelganger.

More students filed in, and Sirius stood as they all took their seats. “Good morning, third years!” he greeted. “Uh, thanks for being here on time.” _Oh no,_ Sirius thought. _You sound exactly like him._ “As you can see, Professor Lupin isn’t here unfortunately, but we’ll just have to make do until he returns tomorrow.”

“You’re Sirius,” almost-Marlene said. She sounded defiant.

“I am,” he replied. “I’ll be working with Professor Lupin and stepping in where I can to help out.”

“I’ve heard that you’re cool.” Almost-Marlene frowned at him.

“He is!” another kid from the back of the class spoke up. “He helped my brother ride a broom for the first time!” A few other students began speaking and muttering to each other.

Sirius thought back to his first day here, before getting cornered by McGonagall. The child who spoke did have a familiar appearance, he realized. “All right, all right,” Sirius said as he waved his hands in faux-refusal. “I’m very cool, yes. But you know what else is very cool? Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

He earned a few half-hearted laughs with that, and even fewer genuine ones. Altogether, not bad. 

“Now, by a show of hands, who has done a proper duel before?”

Faces lit up, and hands all moved from laps or books to the surface of the desks, pressed against the wood in anticipation.

“No one?” Sirius asked, barely holding back his grin. He had already known the answer.

No hands moved, but eyes tracked him silently as he moved to the front of the desk and sat on the edge. 

“Would anyone like to try it?”

Chatter broke out immediately, and hands went into the air. “I thought we were having a test today?” Almost-Marlene shouted above the others.

“Oh, well would you rather? I’m sure I could throw together a few questions,” Sirius said loftily, turning to the chalkboard.

A chorus of _NO_ rang out, and Sirius turned back again, grinning. 

“Your professor and I decided that we could spend today with a more practical lesson, seeing as that caters more to my skill set. Now, would anyone be willing to be a volunteer? The only requirement is that you know how to disarm someone.”

Hands shot into the air, and Sirius didn’t have to think very hard about it before nodding at the girl who reminded him of Marlene. She rushed to the front of the classroom. 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Dorothea.”

“Pleasure to meet you. I’d like you to try to disarm me, but only once we show the class a proper duel procedure. Sounds good?”

“Yeah.” She grinned.

Sirius walked the class through the protocol, with the bowing, and the paces before turning to your opponent. He blocked the first _Expelliarmus_ casually, and steeled himself to let the second one land. Upon being blocked the first time, Dorothea’s eyes turned to steel, and the second disarming spell hit him like a bludger.

“Good one!” he praised, only slightly staggering from the hit. “Are there any questions, then, before we begin?” When no hands rose, but everyone looked eager, Sirius turned them loose.

Later, Sirius lectured on pixies and other creatures for the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw first years. He managed to hold their attention pretty well, and found the more he let himself tell the jokes he instinctively wanted to, the more engaged his students were. He received a few follow-up questions after the lecture, and answered them correctly. During one round of laughter from an objectively lame quip, Sirius didn’t notice the oddly-observant tabby cat to the side swish its tail before dropping from its perch, and he certainly didn’t notice it smile minutely as it slinked out of the classroom door.

***

“I’m telling you, James, it was amazing. They all liked me. And I did well.”

“Mate. I love you, but this has to be the fifteenth time you’ve said so.”

The pair was walking back from the Quidditch pitch, illuminated only by the just-less-than full moon. James had wanted to try a few new spells he had read about for making the quaffle and hoops glow, and Sirius, unhindered by responsibility (especially so, since Lupin wasn’t there), obliged his friend. James had wanted to do so yesterday instead, under the light of the full moon, but McGonagall had pointed out the suddenly-appearing cloud cover.

“Well. It’s true,” Sirius said stubbornly.

James laughed. “No, no, I’m proud of you. And it’s awesome that it went well. But I have a feeling there’s someone you want to tell more than me. Someone you maybe want to impress?”

Sirius rolled his eyes, but smiled in spite of his own wishes anyway. “I hope he’s okay.”

James’s brow furrowed, and he switched his broom to his other hand to push up his glasses. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

“I don’t know.” Sirius frowned. “I guess he just seemed so tired yesterday. It’s hard to imagine having a good trip if you start it knackered.”

“Or hungover.”

“That was one time.”

James cocked his head in indignance.

“That was two times,” Sirius amended.

James swung his free arm around Sirius’s shoulders and huffed a laugh. “I’m sure he’s fine. He is the expert on this stuff, after all.”

Sirius thought again of Remus’s scars. He had adhered to James’s advice, and not spoken of them again, but he did think sometimes. Perhaps he got the scars on a mission that went badly in the past. Perhaps he would get more in the future. “Hey,” Sirius said, interrupting his own thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Can anyone from the castle see us right now?”

They were at the base of one hill, with no one else in sight. “Don’t think so.”

“Wanna race?”

James stopped walking and turned to grin at Sirius. “Three.”

“Two,” Sirius said as he held his broom just above James’s head, criss-crossed with James’s own.

“One,” they said in unison. With a small crack, James disappeared, and a stag appeared in his place, with two broomsticks tangled in its antlers. 

“I really need to take a photograph of you like this one day,” Sirius mused. When the stag began to trot towards the castle, however, he quickly became Padfoot and sprinted after him.

***

Sirius didn’t expect to find Remus at breakfast the next morning, but there he was. The man was bundled in sweaters and scarves, practically covering the majority of his face. It didn’t prevent him from shovelling food in at an admirable rate, however.

“You got your appetite back,” Sirius said in greeting, then kicked himself.

Remus looked up and smiled. “The food’s better here than where I was, trust me.”

“I’ll believe it,” Sirius said as he sat next to Remus. “Welcome back to Hogwarts.”

Remus stopped eating for a moment to regard Sirius for a split-second. “Thank you.”

Sirius smiled and began to add food to his own plate. Success.

When they walked up to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom together, Sirius matched Remus’s slightly slow pace. From his few questions during breakfast, he had learned to not ask Remus about his few and far between research trips. Silently, however, Sirius could still try to connect the dots.

“I hear you were a great teacher yesterday,” Remus had said earlier, and Sirius had tried not to grin too obnoxiously. Now, in the actual classroom (which Sirius had tidied up obsessively), Remus said it again.

“I’m excited about the dueling club,” Sirius said. “James and Lily are both interested; we talked about it yesterday. Although I reminded them that it’s only to be discussed among staff for now.” He had adamantly covered this part, to the point at which James began miming a whip gesture, and Lily began to look suspicious.

“Good,” Remus appraised. “I’m excited too. And I’m glad to hear that James and Lily are on board. I received a note from Dumbledore yesterday actually, letting me know that the governors have supported the idea. So we can begin to advertise it to students today.”

“Awesome.”

The day went by smoothly. Remus was the first to suggest lunch, surprisingly, and Sirius nearly had to jog to keep up with him in the hallways. Remus went noticeably slower on the stairs however. Once in the Great Hall, Lupin consumed (again) what appeared to be his body weight in meat and potatoes. The lack of appetite just days ago made Sirius curious, and he made a mental note to mention it to James later, but then made another note to surreptitiously find out if noticing someone’s eating habits over a few days meant you were—as James would say—whipped. His final mental note was to procrastinate thinking about the subject.

Afternoon classes flew by, and it was halfway through dinner before Sirius realized he had officially been back at Hogwarts for longer than a week. He felt more grounded than ever, and it almost made him miserable to think about how he spent his prior months.

***

“Welcome, students, to the first meeting of the Hogwarts Dueling Club.” Lupin’s low voice carried easily throughout the room.

Students were packed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on Friday night, clumped into tight huddles with their friends. The chatter had become loud, but Sirius was pleased to see that it felt excited. 

“Four staff members will be supervising the club: myself, Mr. Black, Professor Evans, and Professor Potter.” 

Sirius made a face at James, trying to emphasize the order of the list, and he missed his chance to say, “Just Sirius, thanks,” with the sole purpose of interrupting Remus.

“Now, we have some ideas, and we want to lead you first to learning how to duel, but after that we are open to student suggestions. This is, after all, _your_ club, not ours.” 

Excited chatter broke out again, before a few older students took charge and _shushed_ their companions. Sirius was once again pleasantly surprised by Remus. When he was a student, he had never heard a teacher say something so simple yet inspiring. And he was right, this was _their_ club, and as one of the adults, Sirius wanted nothing more than to help lead the students in the direction they wanted. Impressing a fellow teacher and embarrassing another—perhaps even simultaneously—had nothing to do with his motives.

“Other introductions?” Remus asked, looking to Sirius.

Sirius nodded and stepped up a few stairs in front of the chalkboard. “Hi folks! You can call me Sirius, and I’ll be most helpful with the hands-on stuff, like spells and defenses.”

“Hi students!” Lily stepped one stair above Sirius. “We already know each other, unless you are one of a few seventh years who just couldn’t manage to squeeze Muggle Studies into your schedule this year, even though you wanted to so desperately.” She grinned wryly at a few shuffling students with their heads down. “I’m pretty new to everything here, but I’ll try to help as best as I can! And to make one thing clear: I will not be the adult that tolerates anything reckless or harmful.” Students nodded soberly, and Sirius realized their interest and trust in her must be grown in her own classes with them, as he doubted any student would still like a teacher who started their very first introduction with a threat.

“And you all know me!” James waved a hand from where he stood at the side of the room. “I’ll also be a good resource for questions on spells and defenses. I studied up on procedure, but Professor Lupin is still going to be your man for the more exact protocols with dueling.”

As strange as it was to hear James use such a teacher voice, Sirius was still pleased that he didn’t profess his love of safety and respect while doing so.

“Safety and respect are the two most important things here,” Lupin said. Sirius attempted to mask his look of shock. “Today, we will be teaching everyone the proper way to conduct a wizarding duel. It’s okay if you don’t have all of your spells mastered yet. After a demonstration, Professor Evans and Mr. Black will work with a subset of students who want to practice their _Protego_ and _Expelliarmus_ today before beginning to duel. Any questions so far?”

Sirius already knew their plan for the first day, but still grinned coyishly at James, taking a half step closer to Lily. Remus had reasoned that Sirius would be best placed with Lily and the beginning students, since he had successfully taught protection charms and disarming spells already. Lily would be practicing alongside them. James was slightly jealous.

“Ready?” Remus said, looking to James and then back to Sirius.

“Yep,” Sirius said as James nodded. They both made their way to the center of the room, and Lily moved to the stand with the students, for a better view.

Remus described all the steps of a proper duel as Sirius and James performed them in slow motion. There was the bow, and the pacing, and the turning, and now they were facing each other with wands drawn. Sirius grinned.

“Remember, we are only using protection charms and disarming spells for this introduction,” Remus said sternly. “You can show off once they’ve learned what to do.”

Sirius fired two rapid disarming spells at James silently. James swept his hand up in the air and blocked them both, mouthing _Protego_. They swayed in place for a brief moment, both smiling at each other. When James’s arm came back up, Sirius ducked low and pointed at his feet.

James shouted “ _Expelliarmus_!” The burst of light came at Sirius faster than he anticipated, likely due to James using the audible spell. Nonetheless, Sirius batted it away and pointed his wand towards James’s feet again.

When James jumped—from years of practice, but with no spell underneath him—Sirius fired again at his chest. The silent spell hit him squarely, and his wand flew into the air. 

Sirius grinned and turned to Remus, who had a calm smile on his face. If they were closer, Sirius might be able to tell whether or not he was biting his cheek to suppress it. Across the room, Lily was smiling with raised eyebrows at James, who was picking himself up with as much dignity as a professor ought to have. 

Nonetheless, James mouthed “I’ll get you back” to Sirius with a grin. Sirius tilted his head towards Evans and raised his eyebrows slightly. James only narrowed his own in response. 

Students had clapped in excitement, and Sirius took a dramatized bow towards them. 

“Nope, not a part of the demo,” Lupin said, waving an arm at Sirius. This time Sirius saw his full grin. “With the exception of that last bow, you will all be copying the demonstration for yourselves. Any questions before we begin?”

***

“Wow. That went really well.” Remus sank into one of the student desks that he and Sirius had just finished rearranging. Across the room, James had been showing Lily multiple little dueling tricks. By now, Sirius knew she was happy with his attention, the same way that she knew he was yearning for Remus’s, although it wasn’t a topic the two of them discussed. Nonetheless, Sirius heard Lily coquettishly ask James a few times about the dueling techniques that _Sirius_ had used.

Sirius matched Remus, sitting in an adjacent desk. “Yeah. They all loved it, and I think they learned a lot.”

“Yes, it—” Remus tilted his head in thought, an entirely endearing gesture, in Sirius’s opinion. “It went really well.”

James bounced over, evidently the only one of the four adults not exhausted. “Don’t sound so surprised, Lupin!” He clapped a hand on Remus’s shoulder and sat on the top of his desk. 

When James threw a wink his way, Sirius attempted to mouth “whore” at him, but had to abandon the process when Remus looked back up. Remus looked surprised that James was there, but not unpleasantly so. Sirius hoped that he just wasn’t accustomed to casual _platonic_ touch. He promptly felt bad about thinking so. He switched focus back to James’s tricks. 

“Lily, I think you made excellent progress today,” Sirius called out. “Come have a seat.” He punctuated the sentence by nodding to the chair next to his.

Lily narrowed her eyes at him in question, but then smiled after seemingly realizing what he was playing at. “Oh, yes. Sirius, you’re an amazing teacher. I could probably beat James in a duel now,” she mused innocently.

James’s brown skin flushed red. Locking eyes with Sirius, he leaned a few inches closer into Remus’s space. Remus yawned, apparently unaware. Sirius glared at James, who then bit his lip suggestively and sidled up even closer to a half-asleep Remus.

“Okay, jokes aside,” Lily interrupted, waving an arm between Sirius and James’s eye contact, “this was really successful, and I’m already excited for next week.”

At _jokes,_ Remus looked up, suddenly confused. He finally noticed, however, when James scooted an inch closer to him again. “All right, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I’m too tired for it.” He stood from his chair and walked to his actual desk. Grabbing his coat, Remus turned back to the other three. “Well? I think that’s about it. Goodnight everybody.”

After everyone made their way out of the classroom door, Remus yawned as he flicked his wand at it. James and Lily began walking away together—much too slowly for a pair of platonic friends. Sirius lingered behind, feeling self-conscious and silly all the while.

When James turned his head in question, Sirius began to take his first steps down the hall.

“Oh, Sirius?” a deep voice called out from behind him.

Sirius hated how eager he turned around. “Yeah?” 

“Good job today.”

“Thank you.” 

They smiled softly at each other in the third floor corridor of Hogwarts castle on a late Friday night. A nearby arrow slit in the castle’s wall let a beam of moonlight spill in. 

“Moon’s pretty,” Sirius remarked, looking at the half-full beacon.

Remus took a small step backwards. His smile turned fake. “Have a good night, Sirius.” The accent was still there, but his tone was no longer warm.

“Thanks,” Sirius managed to get out. “You too.”

Remus turned and walked down the hall, before Sirius could apologize for his unknown transgression, or ask if he had plans for the weekend, or—and this one stung the most—ask if he could repay last week’s favor with the bottle of (rather nice) whiskey he had a house elf bring him back from Alphard’s.

Sirius eventually turned and made his way back to his room, alone, cursing the picturesque moonlight at every window.


	7. And once, you asked me, what was my biggest fear

Sirius didn’t see Remus over the weekend. James almost made up for it, since he only abandoned Sirius for Lily on Saturday night, leaving all of Sunday clear for flying and other mayhem. 

When Sirius casually mentioned his mentor professor’s absence to McGonagall, she all-but rolled her eyes. She told him that Lupin was on a short but unexpected trip. Sirius asked her how often his periodic research trips were, and he could have sworn her eyebrows rose minutely before answering. Apparently they were highly variable, yet did not interfere with his curriculum, and this particular trip would end before classes began on Monday. Sirius nodded and left her office, after swiping a biscuit of course, but he had the feeling old Minnie was about to say something she shouldn’t. Or, he at least got the impression that whatever trip he was on now was not one of his standard ones.

In any case, the first time Sirius saw Remus again was Monday morning in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Feeling a bit self-conscious, Sirius almost apologized for whatever it was that happened before Lupin turned around and said goodbye on Friday night, but held his tongue. He figured that enough time had passed that it would be weird to bring up the event again—Lupin probably already forgot. 

Classes flew by, Sirius went to lunch, Remus stayed behind. Like a besotten maid, Sirius brought him food: a sandwich and a brownie. Sirius wasn’t sure what mood he was in until the fifth year students entered the classroom quite literally yelling, and didn’t sit in their assigned seats right away. Instead, they milled about, huddling around their friends. Even then, however, they managed to need to shout to another gaggle of kids across the room instead of simply moving. 

“Students,” Sirius shouted. “Please, take your seats. And quiet down.”

Students immediately complied, and the noise level of the room immediately fell to zero. Exasperation, Sirius thought. That was the emotion he felt. And then right after, shame. And frustration with himself.

Remus gave him a long look that Sirius couldn’t decipher, before stepping forward into the front of the classroom, directing student eyes to him instead of Sirius. “Hi everyone,” Remus said cautiously. “From the excited chatter I would guess that Professor McGonagall’s Transfiguration demonstration with the pixies I gave her this morning went smoothly.” He then smiled a bit, raising his eyebrows just slightly, and Sirius felt the students relax.

Another wave of shame hit, and his eyes began to sting. Sirius stepped further into the shadows of the room.

At the end of the day’s classes, Remus took a seat in one of the student desks, and looked over to Sirius expectantly. He had stayed mostly to himself in the corner of the room all afternoon, beating himself up.

Looking at Remus now, Sirius matched his position, albeit in a desk two rows away.

“I’m sorry—”

“It happens,” Remus said simply. He was cradling a sleeping Niffler like a baby. “And it’s _terrible_. I hate it when I do it, but it happens.”

Sirius nodded. Feeling so deeply understood left him with another prickle in the back of his throat.

“It’s hard not to,” Remus continued. “To snap at them. But it usually builds slowly, so if you recognize it, you can try to act earlier than later, and since there’s two of us you can always step out for a moment.”

“I don’t want to be someone that shouts at children,” Sirius whispered.

Remus paused for a moment, looking perfectly comfortable to sit and talk about this issue. By extension, Sirius stopped fidgeting. “I don’t think you will be. Out of curiosity, what was going on that made today noisier for you?”

Noisier, Sirius thought. That was the word he felt. “I don’t know? I—” Sirius thought back to the weekend, to Remus turning away from him in the hallway on Friday night, to the morning where Lily sat with Snape for breakfast. “The classroom just felt loud.”

Remus nodded and stood, careful to not jostle the Niffler. He walked to his desk—he looked healthier again, walking without a limp, Sirius noticed—and procured a bar of Honeydukes semi-sweet chocolate. Smiling, he broke off a small piece of chocolate for himself, a piece of the shiny foil wrapping for the Niffler, and deposited the rest in front of Sirius. Sirius watched him walk back to his seat from earlier.

“Where were you this weekend?” Sirius asked.

Remus jerked his chin towards the untouched bar of chocolate as he chewed. “Home.”

“Parents?”

“Not anymore.”

“Sorry.” Sirius grimaced. “Same for me.”

“Sorry,” Remus echoed.

“Don’t be.” Sirius tilted his head back to dramatically roll his eyes, and was rewarded with a small laugh from Remus. Sirius finally picked up the chocolate. “Will you be around this weekend?”

“Yes, I should be.”

Sirius nodded. Words still felt a little bit tight, but just talking with Remus for the last few minutes and feeling completely heard already made him feel worlds better. “I, uh. I have a bottle of whiskey from my uncle. Maybe I could return the favor from last time?”

Remus looked surprised, but eventually smiled warmly. “I believe I’m free on Friday, after the dueling club of course.”

“Of course,” Sirius repeated, and suddenly he and Remus Lupin were laughing together on a Monday afternoon, having entirely survived an unfortunately low moment in his still-new teaching career.

***

James groaned and flopped onto his bed again, the first three times apparently not sounding appropriately hopeless. _And people think I’m the dramatic one,_ Sirius thought.

James sighed. Normally, Sirius would be happy to let his antics play out before they could resume their typical banter and plans for the day—in this case, flying—but he detected real despair in James’s behavior.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine—”

“She’s chosen him over me,” James interrupted.

“Okay, first of all, no, because—”

“She’s never going to sit with us in the Great Hall again.” James punctuated the statement by flopping a forearm over his eyes.

“I feel like your priorities are kind of out of line here.”

“You’re not helping,” James complained.

“When was the last time you spoke with her?” 

“This morning. But only briefly. She’s been spending all of her free time with Snape again, like before you got here.”

Sirius laid down on the bed next to James. “Since Monday, right? So it’s been two days now, since it is currently,” he paused, just long enough to point out James’s ridiculousness, “Tuesday afternoon.”

“Did I do something?”

At the sadness in his brother’s voice, Sirius finally took pity. “No, Jamesie, I don’t think you did. Lily has to work with Snape, for Potions, right? So they’re probably just working on something. He also doesn’t like us, so maybe he’s mad that she’s been hanging out with us, and, I don’t know, deliberately planning his work-related conversations at mealtimes. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Yeah, probably,” Sirius corrected.

James sat up. “Have you talked to her yet? About Remus?”

Sirius frowned. “No, but I would like to. Whenever I next see her and Snape isn’t there. Or Remus. Or you.”

“Not me?” 

Sirius smiled. “If she’s alone and wants to talk to one of us, I think I’d let you go first.”

James _aww-ed_ , and slung an arm around Sirius’s shoulder. Knowing what was coming next, Sirius started to wiggle his wand out of his pocket. James’s hand lowered and began to squeeze and tickle just below Sirius’s ribs. 

Holding back only some of his laughter, Sirius turned into Padfoot, and made sure to rub as much dog hair into James’s bed as possible. On the bright side, Sirius thought in his less-than-human level cognitive state, James had cheered up again. 

They laid there for a while. Padfoot provided a quiet comfort to James, and was mostly content to spend the afternoon this way instead of flying. It was always difficult to guess how much time had passed while he was in this state, though it sometimes allowed him to get a better sleep. He must have drifted off at some point, because when he opened his eyes again, the light that fell into the room had a burnt and hazy glow.

A knock at the door.

Padfoot hopped down from James’s bed and ambled into the living room portion of James’s quarters just as James opened the door. A woman stood at the door, with red hair and a sad facial expression.

She noticed him, and Sirius’s brain sounded alarm bells. Padfoot, however, trotted up next to her for head scratches.

“I didn’t know you had a dog, James, oh my god. Isn’t he just precious?” Lily cooed.

Preening, Sirius threw a smize back at James, who only rolled his eyes.

“Come in, Lily.”

She entered, James closed the door, and they both sat at opposite ends of James’s couch.

“Padfoot, why don’t you go get Sirius from the other room?” James prompted, making intense eyes at the dog.

Padfoot looked at Lily for a moment, then back at James. He transformed back into Sirius in the living room.

“Oh my god,” Lily whispered, just as James said “Sirius, what the fuck.”

“Well she was going to find out at some point!” Sirius defended.

“I _petted_ you,” Lily muttered, just as James said “Ridiculous.”

“James and I are both animagi,” Sirius explained. “But you can’t tell anyone. Like, at all. Minnie probably already knows, because she’s Minnie, but we haven’t given her a reason to get after us for it yet.”

“Merlin,” James whispered, as Lily turned to him in surprise. “I’m a stag. But I don’t think that’s what you came here for?”

“Right.” Lily looked down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap. “I want to apologize. For being a bit distant recently.”

“Right,” Sirius echoed. “I’ll be in my room then, good luck here!” He smiled at Lily saccharinely, then James genuinely, then left the room. Once he made it through the short stretch of hall and into his own room with the door shut behind him, he finally scratched unabashedly at the spot on his scalp that people always miss when he’s a dog. He used to make James do it, but he started to complain about Padfoot’s lack of gratitude for his tiring act of service.

Sirius half-expected the knock, so when it came about twenty minutes later, he quickly opened the door—in human form. “Evans!” he announced. “Long time no see!”

She rolled her eyes and pushed past him to claim a seat on his couch. “You’re right, Severus is a bit of a git,” she said.

Surprised, Sirius matched her position on the couch. “Yeah?”

“He was mad that I’ve been talking to you and James. And Remus.”

“And Remus?” Sirius repeated.

Lily frowned minutely, before nodding. “Yeah. But I told him that—regardless of my feelings about Potter—I deserve to spend time with whomever I choose, and I will speak to him about work during working hours.”

Sirius nodded. “Good for you,” he said without sarcasm. “I told you earlier, I like non-naive Lily.”

“Thanks.” She huffed a laugh. “I’m so frustrated with him. But what’s to be done, you know?” Before Sirius could nod or speak, she continued, eyes studying the empty fireplace. “Sometimes I feel like the whole new world I stepped into a few months ago wasn’t even the magic, it was just the people. And only a few of them. Does that make sense?”

Sirius felt dumbstruck. She had clearly articulated the feeling he had harbored over the last two weeks better than he was able to even think it. “I think it really does.”

“Great. Now let’s talk about you and Remus.”

Sirius laughed. “Why do you and Snape talk to him so much? What is the intersection between Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

Lily frowned. After a beat of silence, she nonchalantly spoke. “He’s been practicing his potion-making so that he can make them in the field.”

“On his research missions?” “I would assume so?” Lily replied. “But those missions are apparently confidential.”

Sirius knew she was holding something back, but the lack of naivety that was present told him that she actually knew what was going on and knew to keep it from Sirius. “Fine.”

“But you like him,” Lily said.

“Of bloody course I like him,” Sirius returned. “He’s—I don’t know—Remus.”

Lily smiled softly at that. “That’s really sweet, you know.”

“He doesn’t like me though. Not like that. I don’t think he’s even into blokes.”

Lily froze.

“What?” “What?” Lily parroted.

“No, no, you—you went quiet. What is it?”

“Nothing!” Lily cried, sounding much less composed and masked than she did before.

“Is he into blokes?”

Lily sighed after another beat of stillness. “ _Fine_ , Sirius. It’s none of my business, but Severus called him the same slur he called you, does that make you happy to hear?”

Sirius smiled obnoxiously. “Yes, I think it does.”

“But Sirius, you should know,” she started, then stopped, making a pained face.

“What?”

She took a deep breath, and eventually restarted. “He seems great. But,” she paused again, and Sirius stayed quiet while she searched for the words. “I think he has a bit of a thick shell. I honestly didn’t talk to him at all aside from a few work-related things this whole year until you arrived. And that was by his doing, not mine.”

“So…” Sirius prompted.

“So, I don’t know, he might not be the easiest person to crack.”

Sirius thought back to Lupin turning away from him last Friday night, and then disappearing for the weekend. He thought of Remus handing him a bar of chocolate and helping him talk through his mistakes as a teacher. “Yeah, I think I hear you.”

***

Remus had told him over breakfast that they would be covering Boggart-repelling charms today, but it wasn’t until Sirius watched the locked chest struggle and writhe on the floor that he realized they would be showing a live Boggart. Being scared did not affect his desire to prove his skills to Remus, so Sirius shrugged off the worry. He also didn’t know what form his Boggart would take anymore. The last time he faced one had been as a student, and his life had vastly changed since then. 

Sirius was too busy feigning nonchalance to notice Remus’s deep sigh directed at the chest, and subtle trace along his covered forearm.

“You know the charm, right?”

“Of course,” Sirius answered. “ _Riddikulus_.”

Remus nodded. “We shouldn’t have to have a go at it, but I’d like us to both be on standby in case a student can’t dispel it within a few tries.”

Sirius tried for humor to dispel his own discomfort with the Boggart. “Don’t want any angry letters from home about causing nightmares?”

Remus barked a laugh, sounding forced. “How did you know that was my biggest fear as a teacher?”

Sirius just nodded, having realized that Remus was finished with the joke—he probably wanted to get to work already, or, perhaps rather wanted _Sirius_ to get to work already.

When students entered the room, their attention was immediately directed to the unknown crate. Rarely disappointed by Professor Lupin’s demonstrations, they huddled together and whispered about what it may be. Sirius wasn’t bothered by their excitement this time around. Instead, he took part in it.

A wave of quiet washed over him, and Sirius turned to see Remus’s hand falling, after having cast the silencing spell. “One last thing I forgot to mention,” he said, and turned his body so that students would not be able to see him speak. 

“Yeah?” Sirius prompted.

“We’ll see a lot of standard things, like snakes, spiders, Muggle clowns—”

“Unrequited love?”

Remus’s eyebrows quirked slightly in response, and Sirius grinned.

“And,” Remus continued, “let’s keep an eye out for anything worrisome. If their biggest fear is something related to what’s going on at home, for example. Or an adult in their life.”

Sirius swallowed before answering. “Right, yes.” He briefly wondered if his life would have been different if he had had a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor like Remus, but soon the silencing charm was dissolving and Remus was turning back to his students.

“Welcome everybody, I’m sure you have all noticed the elephant in the room.” Remus tilted his chin towards the chest and raised his eyebrows. “Any guesses as to what it is?”

A few excited whispers broke out again, no one voice rising above the rest.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Remus said. “It’s almost Halloween.”

“Professor Lupin!” one student shouted. “A real Boggart?”

Sirius watched as Remus paused as if in thought. He was really in his element here, Sirius appraised. “Well, I think it makes the most sense to practice on the real thing, right? We could always just do theory, if you prefer.”

A chorus of _NO_ rang out, and both teachers grinned. Remus reminded them of what they had learned so far about Boggarts, somehow drawing the information out of the students themselves instead of merely lecturing, and then they practiced enunciating the spell a few times. Eventually, he and Sirius bracketed themselves on either side of a single file line of students. They gripped their wands tightly, looking simultaneously afraid yet confident in their abilities. Sirius found it adorable.

“Mr. Cohen,” Remus said. “Ready to show everyone how it’s done?”

The child nodded, and Remus smiled in encouragement at him before flicking his wand at the locked chest. A dark mass swarmed out, amorphous and twisting in on itself, before assembling into some form of grotesque creature. The object had two legs, although one dragged behind it as it slowly ambled towards the student. Its flesh was green and decaying.

“ _Riddikulus_!”the young boy shouted. The creature’s eyes bulged and it suddenly wore an equally-decaying suit jacket. The boy and a few of his peers laughed, while Remus and Sirius made confused eye contact. 

“How is that less scary?” Sirius eventually said, prompting more laughter. 

“It’s from a Muggle video game!” Mr. Cohen answered. “They both are, but the first game is horror, the second is like, I don’t know, something _you_ would play. If you were a Muggle.”

Sirius gasped. “How old do you think I am?” he cried, prompting giggles from all students, Muggle-borns and others alike. 

The next student in line was a young girl whom Remus referred to as Ms. Abbas. 

The Boggart spent a few seconds in it’s thinking state before morphing into a gigantic Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur, barely fitting into the classroom. It roared at the girl.

She took a deep breath before carefully pronouncing “ _Riddikulus_.”

The dinosaur suddenly wore a hijab that matched her own: a white background with a floral print. 

“It looks better on me,” she declared. 

“Wow,” Sirius said. He was pretty sure he had a new favorite student. Perhaps just a favorite person in general.

Apparently, though, she wasn’t done. Turning to her classmates, she spoke up again. “My religion isn’t funny. But a T-Rex wearing a hijab is.”

Most students nodded solemnly, still looking impressed. Sirius beamed when he caught Remus’s eye. The other man was silently shaking with mirth.

More students followed, accompanied by either large wasps, venomous spiders, or a pack of angry dogs. Sirius noticed Remus flinch at that one, before tethers and reins appeared, forming a pack of sled dogs complete with festively-decorated sleigh.

One student, who Remus addressed only as Erin, cast an unsuccessful _Riddikulus_ charm at a looming serpent. The boa rose up to eye-level, flicking its forked tongue into the air. Students from the back of the room began to mutter. Sirius heard one worried voice say “it’s getting closer to them,” and another say “they can do it, come on,” in encouragement.

Erin shouted another _Riddikulus,_ but they were now as pale as their shirt.

Remus took a deep breath before stepping forward. 

The snake twisted in on itself and a dark mass flew into the air. A cloudy night scene soon floated over the room. “I’m waiting for it to fully materialize,” Lupin narrated. His voice was void of emotion. He sighed once more, flicking eyes to Sirius in regret.

Sirius took a step forward. “I’ve got it.”

The clouds fell out of the air just as light began to shine through them. A body lay on the stone floor. Sirius gasped. Slowly, it rose. Its dark hair lengthened, but the wrinkled face stayed the same. Its voice was unnatural, but close. “They were right, and—”

“ _Riddikulus_!”

Sirius steeled his face as he watched himself turn to confetti. His eyes watered, and his jaw clenched.

He dully felt Remus pull him back a step so the next student could face the Boggart, and he squeezed his shoulder once in possibly encouragement or pity.

***

“Welcome to Dueling Club, week two!” Lily grinned at the group of students standing together in the Great Hall. Much to their surprise, their enrollment had surged after positive reports from the prior week went out, and they had moved into the larger space.

She got a few ‘hi Professor’s in return, but most of the rest just smiled, buzzing in excitement.

Lily gestured to the walls. “Thank you again to my first and second year students for these lovely banners! I’m not much of an art teacher, but it was really fun to use strictly Muggle objects to make them.” A few posters hung on the walls, made of butcher paper and some form of waxy ink. Most of the drawings looked slightly deformed, but Sirius doubted he would have done much better. “Take it away, Professor Lupin,” she said as Remus joined her in the front of the room.

“Thank you. Hi everybody,” Remus spoke. “For today, we’ll do a similar structure as last time. You can self-assign into whatever group you feel is best for you. Professor Evans will lead basic protection charms and disarming spells, Professor Potter will lead more advanced _but still safe_ spells and jinxes to duel with, and then Mr. Black and I will help with anyone who wants to actually duel. If you need a dueling partner, I’ve been instructed to tell you that Sirius is happy to oblige, although he ‘doesn’t want to embarrass anybody.’” 

Sirius winked at him.

“We’ll start with another demonstration duel, this time between two student volunteers.”

Sirius watched Remus pick two from the many that were bouncing at the opportunity, and then narrate as they carefully dueled. “Great work,” Lupin appraised, once they had finished.

“Can we see Professor Potter and Sirius duel again?” the student that had just been disarmed shouted. The audience chattered in excitement.

“Well,” James drawled, “I suppose this _is_ your club after all, so if that _is_ what you want…”

Grinning, Sirius joined him at the front of the room. Sirius looked to Remus, who was rolling his eyes from where he now stood with Lily. “Is it okay if we use more than _Protego_ and _Expelliarmus_?” 

“Yes!” one student yelled from the audience.

Laughing, Remus nodded. “But don’t do anything you wouldn’t want them to use.”

James began the bow, and Sirius moved to follow him. He retrieved his wand from his hair and cracked his shoulders as he walked. 

“Again,” Remus interrupted, “not a good example of protocol.” His voice sounded fond.

James fired a silent disarming spell; Sirius jumped over it. “Nonverbal, today, huh?” he asked.

James smiled before firing a second spell, one that glimmered a bit as it moved through the air towards Sirius’s chest. Sirius batted it up and to the side, and heard a noise as it connected with the ceiling.

“Oh, Merlin,” Remus complained. 

Sirius felt a giant bubble of a shield charm form around him and James. “He’s really strong,” James mouthed.

Sirius responded with a _Petrificus Totalus_.James blocked it. 

James pointed his wand downwards, and Sirius followed its path to his boots. Or, rather, clown shoes. 

“Oh. My. _Why_?” Sirius complained, and heard laughter from outside the bubble.

“I’m being creative,” James defended.

“Fine.” Sirius fired three spells in rapid succession. James blocked the first two, but the final one landed, turning his pants bright yellow. 

“Honestly, I think it works,” James appraised.

A few spells from James later found Sirius’s left arm immobilized, and clown shoes now glued into the floor. 

“Concede?” James asked.

“Of course not. _Aguamenti_!”Sirius shouted. A jet of water flew out of his wand and into James’s face. 

“Merlin!” James cried as he tried to wipe the water from his face. He began to point his wand to Sirius again, but realized his glasses were now coated too, and stopped to take them off. 

Sirius took advantage of the pause to hit him squarely with an _Expelliarmus_.

Students cheered, Remus removed the shield charm, and James shook his head with a grin.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Remus’s deep voice carried over. “And now, students, you can choose where you want to go. Professor Evans is in that corner, Professor Potter will be over here, and if you want to duel, find a spot somewhere in between.”

The club continued on until all students were either finally dueling each other or watching the intense battle between Lily and James. She was carefully enunciating all of her spells, and James was blocking all that he could, without retaliation. Despite her smaller vocabulary of magic, Lily was still able to fight creatively. Sirius locked eyes with Remus after she blasted James with a cooling charm that made him shiver and nearly curse in front of the kids.

After the last student had left, Lily sighed and rolled up her sleeves. “Clean up time.”

Remus waved his hand in a circle and the room quickly righted itself. Her posters rolled themselves up, and the scorch marks in the stone floor (from one of James’s students) were erased. 

“Okay,” James demanded. “Where is your wand.”

Remus smiled slightly as he picked it up. “It was in my hand.”

“No, it most certainly was not.” James cast a sideways glance at Remus before breaking into a smile as well. “I’m glad I’ve been dueling Sirius and not you. But I’m also quite knackered. I reckon it may be bedtime.” He looked just as bright-eyed and awake as he always did.

Lily nodded and stood. She picked up her posters and turned to Remus and Sirius. “Goodnight you guys, this was super fun.”

“Goodnight Lily,” Sirius said, and Remus echoed.

“Goodnight everyone,” James said. 

The group of four stood silently in the Great Hall for a beat. 

“So,” Lily started.

“Lily, I have that other book, if you wanted to stop by for it on your way—”

“Remus, didn’t you have papers you wanted to give me—”

Lily and James made eye contact. Remus and Sirius did too.

“So,” Lily said. 

“So?” Remus questioned. 

“I guess we’re all going to the same place,” James said carefully.

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Don’t forget to use protect—” 

James swatted him, Lily laughed, and the group of four made their way to the hallway with both James and Sirius’s quarters in it. “I’m _only_ picking up a book,” Lily said, challenging Sirius. 

“And Remus is giving me the papers he’s holding.” Sirius gestured to Remus’s empty hands before opening his own door. “Goodnight,” he said again.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr! Here is a link: [@halictus-writer](https://halictus-writer.tumblr.com)
> 
> This work is finished, and new chapters will be posted every other day.


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